Malaysian militant Mahmud Ahmad 'presumed dead'

KUALA LUMPUR— Putrajaya said on Wednesday (Nov 1) that a Malaysian militant tipped to take over as head of the Islamic State (IS) in South-east Asia is presumed dead.

This is because Mahmud Ahmad has not been seen in the southern Philippine city of Marawi, which was under a nearly five-month siege that has claimed more than 1,000 lives and left the Muslim-majority city in ruins.

He has also not been active on social media, said Malaysian defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein.

“We can’t confirm (that Mahmud is really dead) until we find his body. That’s a fact,” said Mr Hishammuddin.

“But the fact that he has not been issuing orders on social media, the fact that he has not been seen in Marawi and actively bragging and giving orders on social media — we can assume he is dead.”

The Malaysian authorities have taken DNA samples from Mahmud’s family, including his son, to assist in the identification process, once his remains are found.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Oct 19 declared that Mahmud has been killed in the battle in Marawi, following the death of Isnilon Hapilon, the head of IS in the region, and his ally Omarkhayam Maute days earlier.

Hapilon, a faction leader of the Abu Sayyaf group and wanted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, was killed last month along with Omarkhayam, one of two leaders of the Maute militant clan, with whom he teamed up with to try to carve out an IS “Wilaya” in the southern Philippines.

If confirmed, the death of Mahmud would be a significant blow to any effort by IS, which is on the back foot in Syria and Iraq, to establish a presence in Mindanao, a vast Philippine island where lawlessness, poverty and rebellion have prevailed for decades.

Mahmud, one of Malaysia’s most wanted men, is believed to have been pivotal in funding the siege of Marawi.

Intelligence officials describe Mahmud as a financier and recruiter, who helped put together the coalition of pro-IS fighters that stormed Marawi City in May, following a foiled attempt by security forces to arrest Hapilon.

The 39-year-old Mahmud, who has a doctorate in religious studies and was a university lecturer in Kuala Lumpur, was Hapilon’s second-in-command in the IS’ South-east Asia “caliphate”, according to a July report by Indonesia-based Institute of Policy Analysis and Conflict (IPAC).

He was the contact for foreigners wanting to join the fight in the Philippines or with IS in the Middle East, it said.

“It wasn’t just Indonesians and Malaysians contacting Mahmud ... he was also the contact for Bangladeshis in Malaysia who wanted to join the fighting in Mindanao,” said IPAC’s director Sidney Jones.

Security experts say Mahmud studied at Pakistan’s Islamabad Islamic University in the late 1990s before going to Afghanistan where he learned to make improvised explosive devices at an al Qaeda camp.

In 2000, he returned to Malaysia to get a doctorate, which earned him a post as a lecturer in the Islamic Studies faculty at the University of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.

Former students described Mahmud as a quiet person who kept to himself.

“He wasn’t the kind of lecturer who hung out at cafes with his students as some others did,” said one former student, who declined to be identified.

He was put on Malaysia’s most-wanted list in April 2014 after leaving the country with several others, including his aide, a Malaysian bomb maker named Mohammad Najib Husen, to work with the Abu Sayyaf Group, notorious for violent kidnappings and beheadings in the southern Philippines.

Mahmud received funding for the Marawi operation directly from IS headquarters, through the group’s South-east Asian unit led by Syrian-based Indonesian militant Bahrumsyah, the IPAC report said.

Intelligence officials said that Mahmud quickly gained the recognition of the Abu Sayaaf Group with his knowledge of weapons and IS propaganda.

Mahmud grew up in Batu Caves, a crowded Kuala Lumpur suburb, famous for a Hindu temple housed in a large complex of caverns. His wife and three children were last known to be living there.

Before leaving Malaysia in 2014, Mahmud taught young Muslim students at a tahfiz, a school to memorise the Quran in Nakhoda, a village near Batu Caves, residents said. AGENCIES