Malaysia’s attorney general says almost USD$700 million channeled into Prime Minister Najib Razak’s private accounts was a personal donation from Saudi Arabia’s royal family, and cleared him of any criminal wrongdoing.
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He said the counter terrorism division would be more vigilant as attacks could occur at anytime, adding that reliable intelligence was the key to prevent attacks from taking place in the country.
“We will never bow down to the democratic system of governance as we will only follow Allah’s rules”, the Katibah reportedly said.
Najib said there were those who argued that such legislations raised to the fore issues of civil liberties. One man allegedly “confessed to planning a suicide attack” in Malaysia after he received orders from the terrorist group in Syria.
He said a slew of new security laws was required to ensure the safety of the nation, amid criticism that his government was stifling civil liberties.
Having been overshadowed by Daesh, Al-Qaeda now seemed to be engaged in an obscene competition with the newer terrorist group by affiliating in the Islamic Maghreb where the group’s recent assaults were on hotels in Mali and Burkina Faso, he said.
Malaysian police said on Sunday seven members of an Islamic State (IS) cell had been arrested in a three-day operation carried out across the Southeast Asian country.
In Indonesia, it is not an offence to support the Islamic State group nor to travel overseas for military training – both which are banned in Malaysia.
National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told the press the men planned to attack “strategic locations” in Malaysia.
The English daily reported that the Malay-speaking wing of Isis, “Katibah Nusantara”, had posted a video in Bahasa Malaysia warning the authorities that its numbers would only increase with the arrests of its members.
Two Malaysian suicide bombers blew themselves up separately in Iraq and Syria earlier this month, killing more than 30 people.
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Ayob Khan, the head of the special branch’s counterterrorism division, said that the video, which featured two Malaysians based in Syria, was further proof of the threat from ISIS and the Katibah group in particular.
