11 per cent of Malaysians are IS sympathisers, poll shows

KUALA LUMPUR — Over one in ten people in Malaysia hold favourable views of the Islamic State (IS) despite atrocities committed, a Pew Research Centre study has shown.

The findings come at a time when Malaysia is grappling with the spread of IS ideology among locals, with increasing arrests reported over suspected links to the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in Paris, France this month.

In the study of Muslims’ attitude towards IS, which the Pew Research Centre gleaned from its 2015 Global Attitudes survey, support level for the group in Malaysia was tied for second place with Senegal among 11 nations with significant Muslim populations polled.

A quarter of respondents here also said they “don’t know” how they viewed the IS, despite Putrajaya declaring the group to be a terrorist organisation.

Expressed support for IS was higher only in Nigeria, the home to the current deadliest terrorist organisation, the Boko Haram, as rated by the Institute of Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index 2015 released this week.

In neighbouring Indonesia — the largest Muslim country in the world by population — 79 per cent of respondents said they were against IS, with just four per cent saying they were positive about the organisation.

Lebanon, which shares a border with Syria, topped the poll with unanimous rejection of IS among the respondents.

A positive conclusion from the survey, however, is that the majority of respondents viewed IS dimly.

The findings will be of concern to local authorities working to contain the dissemination of IS propaganda on social networks, the primary hunting ground of recruiters working for the terrorist group.

Anxiety over the advance of the IS and other militant groups also took centre stage during the ongoing Asean Summit, where both Prime Minister Najib Razak and US President Barack Obama addressed the topic at length.

Authorities here have increasingly reported arrests for suspected terrorist involvement here, primarily over connections to the IS.

Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein recently revealed that Malaysian leaders were being targeted by the local cell of IS.

Last month, eight Malaysian men believed linked to the IS were nabbed in a major police sting operation across three states.

In July, two Malaysians with suspected ties to IS were arrested over alleged plots to attack several key areas, including entertainment spots in the Klang Valley.

In April, police picked up 12 suspected militants while they were planning to test explosives in a Hulu Langat jungle and seized bomb-making materials during the arrest.

Later the same month, police said they nabbed 17 individuals during a secret meeting to plot the kidnap of high profile-figures, to attack places in Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and the Klang Valley.

In August last year, Bukit Aman’s Counter-terrorism Division chief Ayob Khan Mydin confirmed that local IS followers nabbed had admitted to plotting attacks on a disco, pubs in Kuala Lumpur and Danish beer-maker Carlsberg’s factory in Petaling Jaya.

To date, more than a hundred individuals suspected of militant activities have been detained by local police. MALAYMAIL ONLINE