Bukit Aman’s counter-terrorism chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said rejecting fighters who wished to return runs the risk of them going back to their militant ideology.

“We don’t want to fall into that narrative. They are Malaysians and it is our duty to help,” he told Singapore’s Straits Times recently.

He said accepting them back in Malaysia could prevent the problem of militancy from getting worse.

“And by worse, I mean them launching attacks on foreign lands out of frustration. Who is going to be responsible for that?”

In May, Ayob said that 35 of the 65 Malaysians detained in Syria on suspicion of terrorist activities had informed police that they wished to come home.

Ayob also said that authorities are currently working to bring home Nor Mahmudah Ahmad, the 30-year-old widow of slain Malaysian terrorist Muhammad Wanndy Mohd Jedi.

Wanndy was killed in a US drone strike in Raqqa, then the capital of the Islamic State in 2017. Mahmudah survived the attack.