Advertisement
Malaysia
This Week in AsiaPeople

Malaysia’s Isis sympathisers draw focus after deadly Ulu Tiram attack

  • Initial reports linked al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiah to Friday’s ‘lone wolf’ attack on a Johor Bahru police station that killed two officers
  • But extremism experts and former militants say young Southeast Asians ‘lurking in cyberspace’ prefer to join pro-Islamic State groups

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
A police forensic team takes a picture outside of the police station in Ulu Tiram where Friday’s attack took place. Photo: AP
Amy Chew
A deadly assault on a police station in Malaysia’s Johor state last week has highlighted the enduring dangers of violent extremism in a country that closely monitors militancy and has not experienced a major terror attack in over two decades.
Advertisement

The 21-year-old attacker who killed two policemen in the Johor Bahru suburb of Ulu Tiram on Friday was shot dead at the scene. He was reportedly buried on Monday in an isolated grave as a mark of condemnation, in accordance with instructions from the state’s fatwa committee.

Ulu Tiram is a former stronghold of al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the militant group behind the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including at least 11 Hong Kong residents.
The Lukmanul Hakim Islamic boarding school, established by JI’s Indonesian founders Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir, was located in Ulu Tiram before it was closed in the early 2000s. Its alumni included Indonesian terrorists Amrozi and his brother Mukhlas, who were executed in 2008 for their role in the Bali bombings, as well as Malaysian bomb-maker Noordin Moch Top, who was killed by Indonesian counterterrorism forces in a 2009 raid.

Radicalised students from the school have since spread out across Southeast Asia, according to Benny Mamoto, a retired Indonesian police general who investigated the Bali bombings. Local media reported on Tuesday that authorities were considering demolishing the school building, with the head of the local religious affairs committee saying he had received complaints that it was still in operation, despite the building no longer being in use.

Police officers inspect the ruins of a nightclub in Denpasar destroyed in the Bali bombings of 2002. More than 200 people were killed in the attacks. Photo: AP
Police officers inspect the ruins of a nightclub in Denpasar destroyed in the Bali bombings of 2002. More than 200 people were killed in the attacks. Photo: AP

Malaysian police initially identified the suspect in Friday’s attack as a member of JI. But on Sunday, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution described it as “a lone wolf attack” unrelated “to some big overall mission or a dangerous group”.

Advertisement