In a report by the Straits Times yesterday, Muhammad Haziq Jani warned Malaysian police to be vigilant of Malaysian IS fighters and supporters who continued to thrive on social media platforms.
“While Malaysia has the legal recourse to combat real-world terrorism – such as the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act, or Sosma – on top of nascent counter-radicalisation and counter-ideological efforts, Kuala Lumpur cannot ignore the thousands among its citizens who believe that they are contributing to IS’s cause through their online ‘ribat’,” wrote Muhammad Haziq.
“In non-military usage, ribat means a building prepared and put aside for ritualistic, academic and educational activities of the fuqaha (scholars of jurisprudence) and the Sufis.”
The researcher from the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), noted that the use of the term has been “supplied with the notion of the ‘frontier’ that was injected by the period of conquests in Islamic history.”
This concept in the modern setting refers to the groundwork: intelligence-gathering, battle-readiness, and possibly religious indoctrination.
“Malaysian online murabitun (extremists) – those who undertake cyber ribat – have been complicit in shaping and building online and real-world communities of extremists,” claims Muhammad.
“They are supporters and sympathisers of radicals who could not afford the trip to Syria, or were advised not to go or have yet to find the courage to leave Malaysia and their families behind.”
According to Muhammad Haziq, they instead spread the jihadist message among the Malay-speaking community, vicariously living the battle through Malaysian murabitun, such as the late Lotfi Ariffin.
“Since 2013, the online murabitun have followed the journey of extremists, such as Lotfi Ariffin, producing and distributing extremist content, from the daily lives of fighters in Syria to calls for jihad and even material such as logos, pictures and videos from ‘IS Central’,” he said.
“Online murabitun with dangerous levels of radicalisation should not be left alone just because they are not an immediate threat. Those who have yet to be dangerously radicalised need to be rescued and guided back into society for their own safety and for the security of Malaysia,” he concluded.