"Malaysia has played official host to “all sorts of terrorists, criminals, political exiles, people with arrest warrants by police in other countries,” wrote popular blogger Syed Akbar Ali, who blogs at OutSyed The Box. “ And some of them have been shot dead or assassinated here in Malaysia. Malaysia has a long history of allowing political exiles, wanted terrorists, people with arrest warrants from other countries to enter the country. This has been our style.”
The arrest in a Kuala Lumpur hotel of a mysterious 36-year-old Israeli “gangster” possessing six handguns and 200 bullets who traveled from the United Arab Emirates on March 12 has awakened feverish questions over who was likely to be his prey
The suspect, who was said to have shifted from hotel to hotel in Kuala Lumpur before he was apprehended, was identified in Israeli newspapers as Shalom Avitan, an associate of what was described as the Musli brothers crime family. According to multiple news sources, Avitan was en route to assassinate Eran Haya, head of a rival crime family. The two syndicates, the Israeli press reported, have been engaged in a violent feud for months and that Avitan’s upscale home, in Tel Aviv’s Bavli neighborhood had been targeted by grenades tossed by Haya’s men in mid-March, around when Haya was said to have entered Malaysia.
Three Malaysian citizens including a married couple have also been remanded into custody for allegedly providing Avitan with his weapons and acting as his driver, for which he is said to have paid using cryptocurrency, raising questions about how an Israeli apparently new to the country, a gangster seeking revenge against a rival, could fly into a hostile nation where conviction or possession of a firearm or even ammunition could result in imprisonment for up to seven years, or to a fine up to RM10,000 (US$2114) or both, make contacts and apparently be set to begin a shooting spree.
Police have established several more names and action will be taken against them.
“The most important question is why he needed six guns,” said a Kuala Lumpur source. “He claimed the guy grenaded his house in Israel. But nobody knows. The Malaysian police are no good at questioning. They just beat you up. They need to get some Singaporeans. They were trained by the Israelis.”
As several sources pointed out, the gangster tale could well be a cover story if he was caught, and that Mossad, Israel’s vaunted intelligence service, has a long record of inventing disguises and stratagems to strike at enemies far from the borders of the besieged Middle Eastern country, and that Israeli news sources are not above helping out the intelligence services with a cover story.
Mossad has long been believed to maintain surveillance of the range of Islamic outlaws allowed permission to stay in the country. Police haven’t ruled out the possibility that Avitan could be a Mossad operative.
Malaysia is home to around 600 Palestinian refugees. The Palestine Cultural Organization Malaysia (PCOM), an NGO headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, has long been believed to be a Hamas front.
Mossad has struck in the past in Malaysia, for instance in 2018 when two gunmen who were never caught fired 10 shots from a motorcycle at a Palestinian engineering lecturer named Fadi al-Batsh, killing him instantly. Fadi, who may or may not have been a member of Hamas, was said to be skilled in rocketry. In September 2022, local media reported that two Palestinian computer programmers abducted by Malaysians, supposedly on Mossad’s instructions, managed to get away although the connection was never proven.
“Malaysia is sort of like the Beirut of Southeast Asia, and a good place to take out dangerous Muslims who reside there,” said a source with contacts inside Malaysia’s Special Branch intelligence service. “I suspect he with others were after some Hamas people in KL.”
US efforts to restrict external parties from supporting Hamas are unilateral and Malaysia will not recognize them.
Malaysia has played official host to “all sorts of terrorists, criminals, political exiles, people with arrest warrants by police in other countries,” wrote popular blogger Syed Akbar Ali, who blogs at OutSyed The Box. “ And some of them have been shot dead or assassinated here in Malaysia. Malaysia has a long history of allowing political exiles, wanted terrorists, people with arrest warrants from other countries to enter the country. This has been our style.”
“We should not be surprised that political assassinations take place in Malaysia occasionally,” wrote Prof James Chin, a Malaysian who is director of the Asia Institute of Tasmania at the University of Tasmania when North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un arranged for the murder of his own brother at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in 2017. “As long as Malaysia allows political exiles who are still active to live in Malaysia, political violence not related to Malaysia will occur on Malaysian soil. The Kim killing was not the first and will not be the last.”
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.