Najib makes impassioned pledge to fight IS tooth and nail

PM says that as chair of Asean this year, Malaysia is leading the region to combat all forms of extremism including the spread of IS ideology.

NEW YORK: Malaysia, as chair of Asean, will fight tooth and nail to stem the spread of Islamic State (IS) ideology and stamp out all forms of extremism regionally as well as locally, said Prime Minister Najib Razak.

He said this when delivering his speech at the Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism at the United Nations, hosted by US President Barack Obama and his Vice-President, Joe Biden.

Warning militants to either renounce their “creed of hate, violence and extremism” or be willing to “face the consequences”, Najib said Malaysia was strongly opposed to IS’s misrepresentation of Islam and their readiness to justify sadistic brutality, torture and murder of innocent men, women and children as permissible in Islam.

He said that Malaysia had shown no tolerance to suspected IS sympathisers and had already made over 100 arrests in recent months.

“We must make pre-emptive arrests if necessary and if there is irrefutable evidence, to save innocent lives,” Najib was quoted by the New Straits Times as saying.

He said that apart from these arrests, efforts were in place to strengthen the collaboration between local enforcement authorities with their international counterparts especially in the area of intelligence gathering.

Acknowledging the success rate of IS’s influence in cyberspace, Najib said Southeast Asian governments must put their heads together to counter the deception spread by the IS network who have used Islam to attract locals to join them.

To this end, Najib said Malaysia was exploring the setting up of a regional digital counter-messaging communications centre to combat the IS’s efforts.

“We will not allow impostors to besmirch the name of a religion which in its true form, if interpreted correctly, is light to mankind,” he said.