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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Islamic State rapidly expanding into Southeast Asia

May 30, 2015 3:14 pm By Robert Spencer

Islamic-State4The Islamic State is attracting the allegiance of so many Muslims from around the world, one might be forgiven for getting the impression that it actually has something to do with Islam. Of course we know that couldn’t possibly be the case: Barack Obama and John Kerry and David Cameron assure us otherwise, and they wouldn’t lie to us, now, would they?

“Islamic State Is Rapidly Expanding in Southeast Asia,” by Josh Rogin, Bloomberg, May 29, 2015:

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has ramped up its activities in Southeast Asia so effectively that there is now an entire military unit of terrorists recruited from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, according to Singapore’s prime minister.

“Southeast Asia is a key recruitment center for ISIS,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the Shangri-La Dialogue here in Singapore Friday. He noted that this included more than 500 Indonesians and dozens of Malaysians. “ISIS has so many Indonesian and Malaysia fighters that they form a unit by themselves — the Katibah Nusantara — Malay Archipelago Combat Unit,” he added.

Even in the small and tightly controlled city-state of Singapore, “a few” young men have gone to Syria to join the Islamic State ranks, and even more were intercepted trying to leave, Lee disclosed. He said the Singaporean authorities had recently arrested two students, one 17 and one 19, the latter of whom had planned to assassinate Singaporean government officials if he was unable to reach the Middle East.

“This is why Singapore takes terrorism, and in particular ISIS, very seriously,” Lee said. “The threat is no longer over there, it is over here.”

Lee revealed that the Islamic State has posted a propaganda and recruitment video showing Malay-speaking children training with weapons inside territory controlled by the terror group, and that two Malaysians were identified in a separate video carrying out the beheading of a Syrian man.

Lee also said that the Malaysian police have arrested several people who were planning to go to Syria to join the terrorist group, including some members of the Malaysian armed forces. Some were planning attacks inside Malaysia. Meanwhile, several jihadist groups in Southeast Asia have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, including Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah, whose leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, announced his allegiance from his prison cell last year.

The Islamic State has said it intends to establish a province of its “caliphate” in Southeast Asia. Lee said the idea was a “grandiose, pie-in-the sky dream.” But he warned that it’s entirely feasible that the group could take advantage of some ungoverned spaces to establish a foothold from which to expand recruiting and plan attacks in the new host countries. “That would pose a serious threat to the whole of Southeast Asia,” Lee said.

Starting Friday, Singapore will contribute a KC-135 tanker plane to the international coalition fighting against Islamic State forces in the Middle East. The deployment is symbolic, but Lee emphasized that the fight against Islamic extremism was just beginning, and like the Cold War, would surely take decades to win. “50 years from now, I doubt the scourge of extremist terrorism will have entirely disappeared,” he told the forum. “Remember that Soviet Communism, another historical dead end, took 70 years to collapse, and that was a non-religious ideology.”

Terrorism in Southeast Asia is not new. More than 200 people died in the Bali bombings in 2002. Jemaah Islamiyah almost succeeded in a plot to bomb diplomatic offices in Singapore just after Sept. 11, 2001. But the development that Southeast Asian terror groups are now flying the black Islamic State flag — and that young men from the region are saluting — is a huge problem….

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Filed Under: Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) Tagged With: Lee Hsien Loong


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Comments

  1. Angemon says

    May 30, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    Lee said the idea was a “grandiose, pie-in-the sky dream.”

    That may be the case, but that won’t stop them from trying, killing innocents in the process.

  2. nicu says

    May 30, 2015 at 3:42 pm

    The world would be a so much better place without them 🙁

    They turn everything into something evil !

  3. Daniel Triplett says

    May 30, 2015 at 3:51 pm

    From Morocco to Indonesia, and everything in between, the scale of the Islamic problem is way too enormous now to be solved with a conventional military solution. The doves need to get real, and recognize this unprecedented threat to the future of mankind.

    A nuclear offensive is the safest, least expensive, and most effective strategy to solve this.

    We’re not going to “reason with them and educate them how bad Islam is, talking them out of Islam without force,” as I’ve heard many say. How many Muslims do you see come onto jihadwatch.org and say, “Wow, I’ve really been a fool. Thanks for showing me the truth. I’ll denounce Allah and Muhammad now.” Sure, maybe a few have, but most Muslims come on here to defend Islam, on what is the best website in the World to learn about the truth of Islamic evil.

    Nobody has put more effort into educating the World about Islam than Robert Spencer. He’s the best teacher we have, yet most Muslims who hear him remain undeterred. IMHO, Robert’s main accomplishment has been changing the minds of millions of useful idiots into joining the Counter-jihad with us, showing the Western World the gravity of this threat. Thank God for him. Imagine how uninformed the Free World would be without him.

  4. TH says

    May 30, 2015 at 4:55 pm

    The difference between Mr. Lee and Obama and his accolades is that he is not an idiot.He doesn’t live in fantasyland, but rather takes reality seriously. Being out of touch with reality is not only a sign of idiocy but also of serious mental ilness. However, in Obama’s case it is probably compulsive deceit of the nation.

  5. mortimer says

    May 30, 2015 at 9:51 pm

    You would think that Islamic supremacism is actually the goal of large numbers of Muslims!

    Who would have thought it? Don’t Muslims all sing kumbaya?

    Oh, sorry. I forgot, Muslims don’t allow music.

  6. Sabri S. says

    May 31, 2015 at 12:48 am

    It’s time to establish a caliphate here in the USA!
    It should be called ISIA….islamic state of the americas…
    The facts are that everywhere america goes….death and
    Destruction. Follow..

    • Champ says

      May 31, 2015 at 1:56 am

      “Savage S.lave” is one EVIL perp!!

    • Angemon says

      May 31, 2015 at 5:16 pm

      Sabri S. posted:

      “The facts are that everywhere america goes….death and
      Destruction. Follow..
      ”

      Only for it’s enemies, and back when Americans leaders had a backbone. 2016 can’t come soon enough…

      • Gerald says

        May 31, 2015 at 5:53 pm

        Only two things will happen in 2016, Hilary will become President and Huma Abedin (Muslim Sisterhood) will be the Sec. of State.

  7. Sabri S. says

    May 31, 2015 at 2:23 am

    Phillip,
    Get a life!…as the saying goes…and while you are at it…
    Get a brain and try to develop intelligent thinking. Talk about
    A hypocrite and coward! What happened to the freedom of speech
    You and your clown cohorts are screaming about on this blog?…or is that
    only for deluded bigots like yourself? I fear nothing but Allah….know this…
    would you feel better if I suggested Islamic Council of the Americas?…in fact,
    that sounds pretty good…i think I will incorporate this charity in Texas first
    Thing Monday morning….in other real news, your government decided to send
    Another shipment of weapons to “moderate sunnis” in iraq…w hat a joke!…smart
    americans are slowly waking up t o the true doctrine of islam, and leaving your
    Bulls hit bigotry, imperialism and islamophobia garbage in the trash heap…and
    Tell the F B I I said that!! …sharia h law trumps any man made law anywhere in the
    World..if it didnt, we would have the scenarios described in your childish response
    to me coward….Allah U Akbar!!!…

    • Angemon says

      May 31, 2015 at 5:18 pm

      Sabri S. posted:

      “What happened to the freedom of speech
      You and your clown cohorts are screaming about on this blog?
      ”

      Who’s trying to prevent you from speaking?

  8. Matthieu Baudin says

    May 31, 2015 at 4:25 am

    The intelligent plain speaking that emanates from the government of Singapore and its undoubted resolve to lock out Jihad violence demonstrates true international leadership. This robust civil society is simultaneously moving towards expanded individual liberty, while checking the current threat to its social cohesion, enviable low crime rates and high standard of living.

  9. Smart Guy says

    May 31, 2015 at 5:15 am

    Nukes ?? we cant use nukes to defeat Islam. That would make the land uninhabitable for centuries.
    We are not fighting against ISIS. Go to Veterans Today.com and you will find out that our so called
    air support is all fake. Our jets are dropping bombs on empty buildings. The CIA created ISIS.
    According to the Iraqi government 2 British planes were shot down supporting ISIS with weapons.
    We are supporting Saudi Arabia. The President bowed down to the king.
    “But the United States stands by Saudi Arabia, which has no elections, no rights for women and a brutal secret police force under which people vanish from their homes an the middle of the night. Critics of the king have been whipped nearly to death, but President Obama took occasion to bow to him.” William J. Murray WND.com

    • Angemon says

      May 31, 2015 at 5:20 pm

      Smart Guy posted:

      “Nukes ?? we cant use nukes to defeat Islam. That would make the land uninhabitable for centuries.”

      Just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

  10. Frank Courtney says

    May 31, 2015 at 6:12 am

    The only location that would need to be nuked is Mecca. A matrix of nine dropped at three mile intervals with the centre bomb targeted on the Kaaba would be turn the sand into radioactive glass and be sufficient to make the whole area unviable for generations.

    When Muslims then realised “almighty Allah” could not protect Mecca from total destruction their morale and “faith” would be utterly destroyed.

    • Angemon says

      May 31, 2015 at 5:23 pm

      IMO, that ship has sailed. The islamic state could simply use the destruction of Mecca to claim that Saudi Arabia had lost allah’s protection and that they are the rightful caliphate.

  11. Frank Courtney says

    May 31, 2015 at 6:15 am

    The only location that would need to be nuked is Mecca. A matrix of nine dropped at three mile intervals with the centre bomb targeted on the Kaaba would turn the sand into radioactive glass and be sufficient to make the whole area unviable for generations.

    When Muslims then realised “almighty Allah” could not protect Mecca from total destruction their morale and “faith” would be utterly destroyed.

    • abad says

      May 31, 2015 at 6:25 pm

      That is exactly what we should do. Drop an atomic bomb on Mecca.

      But Obama won’t do it. Not while he’s praying 5 times a day to his Black Rock of Allah……

  12. particolor says

    May 31, 2015 at 6:40 am

    Missed by II that much Infidel !! 🙂

  13. kay says

    Jun 1, 2015 at 12:39 am

    I will makes this article known to many thousands on eight or more online groups. I have already been covering religious conflict in Sri Lanka and Burma. This will add to those stories and outreach articles.

    Be advised that Islamic attacks on southern Thailand have been ongoing for years, including murder of schoolteachers and attacks on police stations.

    • Matthieu Baudin says

      Jun 1, 2015 at 4:04 am

      A nice idea Kay. It is a good article and well worth distributing.
      Regards, M.B.

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