The fight against ISIL requires tough laws

Malaysia has joined the list of countries that have suffered an ISIL terror attack, writes Sholto Byrnes.

ISIL suicide bombers do not just target places like Iraq and are spreading their threat to countries such as Malaysia. Hadi Mizban / AP

ISIL has made good – all too good – on its vow to make Ramadan “a month of pain”, with one estimate of 800 people killed over the past four weeks. The majority were not “infidels” – except by ISIL’s twisted and blasphemous definition – but Muslims, with the most recent atrocities being perpetrated in Dhaka and Baghdad, and on Monday in Saudi Arabia. There, shockingly, four security guards died preventing suicide bombers going into the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina – one of the holiest sites in Islam, in the most sacred of months.

After those enormities, the attack on a bar on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur last week may seem to pale in comparison. No one was killed, although eight people were injured after a grenade was thrown into the Movida nightclub in the suburb of Puchong – an area unlikely to feature on tourist itineraries, nor a high-profile financial or administrative district.

The incident has taken on a ghastly significance, however, after the police announced that it was not gang-related as previously thought. It was, in fact, the first time ISIL had managed to carry out a successful terrorist act on Malaysian soil.

“The two men who carried out the attack were receiving instructions directly from [ISIL] militant Muhamad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi from Syria,” said the country’s inspector general of police, Khalid Abu Bakar, on Monday. He added that this was just the first of a series of planned outrages. The “senior leadership of the country, top police officers and senior members of the judiciary” were also on the list of targets.

This is deeply unsettling for a country that has a Muslim majority, but also substantial minorities of other faiths, including Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, and has long been a byword for moderation and tolerance.

It should not, however, have been a surprise. Malaysia’s leadership has been unequivocal in its opposition to violent extremism. At the United Nations General Assembly last September, Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Tun Razak labelled ISIL as impostors who “besmirch the name of a religion which is a light to mankind”.

But Malaysians have been prominent in regional Islamist terrorist groups such as Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines and Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia. South East Asian fighters have formed their own brigade – Katibah Nusantara – in ISIL’s capital, Raqqa, and have been linked to attacks in their home region.

In Malaysia, more than 160 people suspected of ties to ISIL have been rounded up over the past two years, while ISIL has released videos of Malaysians and Indonesians burning their passports and declaring threats against the authorities of both countries.

Despite all this, some appear to have been in a state of denial. Last year, when the government passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act, some opposition lawmakers claimed it was not necessary. Human Rights Watch, which appears to have a department solely dedicated to criticising Malaysia’s leaders whenever they do anything at all, said the return of detention without trial – even specifically to target those engaged in the “commission or support of terrorist acts” – was “a giant step backwards for human rights”.

Worst of all were the international commentators who gullibly swallowed the narrative that antiterrorism measures were really just cover for a government that wanted greater control of its citizens. The threat from terrorism in Malaysia, according to The Guardian's assistant editor Simon Tisdall, was "specious".

It was a foolish comment then and looks even more so today. In fact, I am told that the security and armed forces had been asking for the antiterrorism act and other measures, such as the National Security Council Act, which allows for the designation of special “security areas” for six months so they could take all steps necessary to deal with extraordinary and imminent dangers.

The fact that these new laws were needed is shown by the Indonesian government deciding it had to tighten its own antiterrorist legislation after ISIL’s attack in Jakarta in January. At that time, as Sidney Jones, director of Indonesia’s Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, put it, the law did “not ban membership in ISIS or similar organisations, or participation in terrorist-training camps abroad. Even when the Indonesian police know that individuals are actively recruiting for ISIS, they have few legal tools to stop them.”

It is clear that no one, and nowhere – from Medina to Malaysia – is off limits to this barbaric group, whose actions must surely begin to revolt even those foolish enough to sympathise with their extreme, nihilistic ideology.

Until that time, however, efforts to contain radicalisation and to spread the message of the true, peaceful Islam are necessary but not sufficient. Other countries will have to follow Malaysia and Indonesia in implementing legislation to combat a force that recognises no civil liberties whatsoever.

As Mr Najib said in a speech in January: “The best way to uphold civil liberties is to ensure the safety of the nation. I make no apology for making the security of all Malaysians my first priority. We will not wait for an outrage to take place before putting all measures necessary in place.”

If any Malaysians doubted the truth of that before last week’s attack in Puchong, they shouldn’t now. Malaysia has joined the list of nations whose citizens’ blood has been spilt on their own soil by ISIL. It surely won’t be the last.

Sholto Byrnes is a senior fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia