Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division (SB-CTD) Principal Assistant Director Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said police found that operatives are returning to their original country to pursue their goals as Syria is getting pounded by anti-IS forces, which include the Syrian army, the United States (US) and Russia.
Calling it a “boomerang effect”, Ayob said this was compounded by the stage-by-stage release of scores of convicted Indonesian terrorists from the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group, from Guantanamo Bay by the US government.
He added that the JI members end up spreading their radical ideologies in the region, after their release and return to Indonesia.
According to the NST, Ayob said that these terrorists have already established regional and global networks, and are capable of launching large scale attacks.
Previously, it was reported that eight IS operatives were detained after returning home from Syria, and Ayob also told the NST that these men remain radicalised.
One of them even returned with a gunshot wound and another 18-year-old had spent hundreds of hours fighting the Syrian army.
Two of the men, it was reported, had planned to attack Putrajaya while another had planned to attack the Freemason Lodge in Bukit Jalil with IEDs (improvised explosive devices).
The eight men had tried to enter the country through normal and illegal routes, before they were detained by the police, the daily reported.
Since 2013, the counter-terrorism unit under Bukit Aman has managed to foil 13 terror attack attempts. Seven of these attempts were at a “stage two” level, which police say meant that the operatives were caught with chemicals, ammunition and other bomb-making materials – just waiting for the time, and order to strike.
It was reported previously that Syria-based Malaysian IS de facto leader Muhammad Wanndy Muhammad Jedi is the main man pulling the strings from Syria, giving out orders to the local operatives on when and how to carry out the attacks
Malaysia recorded its first IS terror attack on June 28, when two men on a motorbike threw a grenade at the Movida Bar, an outlet located at the IOI Boulevard in Puchong. There were no fatalities, but a few people were injured, two of them badly.