WOMEN and children are among the 56 Malaysians still stranded in Syria as efforts to bring them home are stalled, said sources from the counter terrorism division in Bukit Aman.

They told The Malaysian Insight the women and children were living in humanitarian camps in Syria while the men who fought under the Islamic State flag were in prisons.

“The problem now is that those who are controlling the camps and prisons are not affiliated with the Syrian government and Malaysia does not recognise them. We do not have a diplomatic relationship with the group.

“So efforts to bring the Malaysians home have hit a wall but we are still working closely with our foreign counterparts and other intelligence groups,” said a source.

It is believed the Malaysians have been in Syria for more than two years.

The men had gone to Syria to fight alongside Abu Bakar Al-Baghdadi, the IS leader who was killed in a Syrian air raid in 2019.

Some of the men had brought along their wives and children as they sought to establish a caliphate in Syria.

Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi was one of them. Known as Abu Hamzah Al-Fateh, the Malaysian fighter was in Syria at the beginning of the war with his wife. He became a recruiter for IS of other Malaysians to wage jihad.

He is believed to be the mastermind of several attacks in Malaysia, including on an entertainment centre in Puchong, Selangor in 2016.

He was killed in a US drone attack in Raqqa in 2017. His wife was reported to have remarried a Belgian IS fighter.

No IS threat here

On the 16 Malaysians who were detained upon their return from Syria, the source said the 10 men were currently serving their jail sentence while the two women and four children had been released. 

“One of the women, we found out, was tricked by her husband to go to Syria. We have released her.”

The other women remained under surveillance, he said.

“She lives with the parents but she’s wearing a monitoring device for us to track her and she must report to the nearest police station twice a week.

“As for the children, they are staying with their relatives,” said the source.

Principal assistant director of the Special Branch’s Counter-Terrorism Division (E8) Normah Ishak told The Malaysian Insight the IS threat was under control in Malaysia.

“Despite the pandemic, the police, especially the E8, are monitoring the situation and it is under control.

“The IS does not have a base in Malaysia unlike in other countries. Many were inspired by stories written by Wanndy but after he died, the narrative was lost.

“However, we are not taking that for granted,” the first woman to head the anti-terrorism division affirmed.

Terror expert Dr Ahmed El-Muhammdy said E8 had taken a preventive approach instead of immediate prosecution.

“The close monitoring by E8 had helped calm the situation. The threat is extremely low now. Maybe perhaps it has got to do with the Covid-19 pandemic as well.

“But the preventive approach taken by the police have contributed to the low threat from IS members or sympathisers,” said the academic.

The war in Syria began in 2011 as a chain of peaceful protests against Bashar Al-Assad’s government.

The demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring grew into a civil war between the various religious groups in the country.

Foreign fighters began arriving in Syria not long after the war broke out. 

Analysts had seen the death of Abu Bakar as the final sign that IS has lost the battle in Syria but several terror attacks in Europe in the past few years show the ideology has been widely adopted by radicals in the west. – February 13, 2021.