Not only has Malaysia become a way station for conspirators to plot terror attacks abroad, conflicts in other country’s are now spilling over onto Malaysian streets, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
It quoted security analysts as saying that for decades, Malaysia had attracted transnational criminals and political exiles.
The main reason for this was Malaysia’s open-border policy and apathy, according to experts quoted by the WSJ.
It cited two recent major terror-linked plots: The murder of Kim Jong Nam, blamed on a North Korean-led hit team, and an alleged Islamic State-linked attempt to attack Saudi King Salman’s visiting delegation last week with a car bomb.
In June 2016, Islamic State-influenced militants carried out a grenade attack at a nightclub in Puchong, injuring eight people. Police said it was the first ever successful IS attack in Malaysia.
WSJ quoted Rohan Gunaratna, a professor of security studies at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore, as saying: “In the past, terrorists did not target Malaysia, but today the threat has changed. Malaysia has become a really important target.”
Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar told WSJ that authorities had raised the alert level since the two plots in February but that “people are free to move and do their routine”.
It quoted the words of James Chin, director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania, who wrote in a recent article: “As long as Malaysia allows political exiles who are still active to live in Malaysia, political violence not related to Malaysia will occur on Malaysian soil. The Kim killing was not the first and will not be the last.”
Malaysia, said WSJ, was among the most welcoming nations, extending visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 164 countries and territories. In comparison, the US does so for 43 countries and France, 91.
WSJ noted that when many Western nations curbed travel from some Middle Eastern states after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US, Malaysia eased travel privileges for the region, drawing millions of new visitors. However, it did take new security precautions.
And until the diplomatic spat with Pyongyang, North Koreans enjoyed visa-free travel to Malaysia.
WSJ said Malaysia’s National Security Council last year proposed restoring visa requirements for several Middle East nations, citing the need for greater controls following an Islamic State-linked attack, but that the Cabinet threw it aside.
The proposal was rejected, added the report, because the Cabinet felt it was discriminatory, diplomatically complex and bad for the economy.
WSJ gave several examples of transnational criminals and political exiles finding Malaysia a conducive place to meet and discuss plots and issues.
US officials had previously said that the Sept 11 attacks and the USS Cole bombing in the Gulf of Aden were partly planned by al-Qaeda operatives meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
The 9/11 Commission Report said militants linked to Osama bin Laden saw Malaysia as an ideal place for wounded militants to recover.
It noted that Indonesians Abu Bakar Bashir, spiritual head of a Southeast Asian affiliate of al-Qaeda, and Riduan Isamuddin – known as Hambali – once Southeast Asia’s most-wanted terrorist, both lived in Malaysia in the 1980s and 1990s.
Bashir was convicted and imprisoned in Indonesia while Hambali is a Guantanamo Bay detainee.
It said leaders of an Indonesian separatist movement in the Aceh region had also set up base in Malaysia, but did not give details.
Another regular Malaysia visitor, the WSJ noted, was Zakir Naik, an India national “who has urged all Muslims to be terrorists, praised bin Laden and called for the death penalty for homosexuality”.
WSJ said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.
“Malaysia is a place where local and international networks of all sorts are built and seeds are sowed slowly and steadily because of its peaceful and apathetic setting,” it quoted Achmad Sukarsono, an analyst with Washington DC-based Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy, as saying.
“As long as they lie low, stay quiet and act normal, people with extreme ideas can connect with like-minded others.”