"When you've got one person who is deranged or driven by a hateful ideology, they can do a lot of damage, and it's a lot harder to trace those lone wolf operators."
– Former US president Barack Obama (2011)
The shocking deaths of state security personnel Muhamad Syafiq Ahmad Said and Ahmad Azza Fahmi Azhar come in the wake of the attempted terrorist attacks on a couple of KK Mart stores.
The latter attacks were emboldened by the rhetoric of partners in the Madani state and no doubt coddled by the pusillanimous attitude of the majority stakeholders, the firebombing of DAP MP Ngeh Koo Ham’s home, and now bullets and a death threat against DAP’s Teresa Kok.
Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail in an attempt to ameliorate the tense situation claimed that the attack on the Ulu Tiram police station last Friday was by a lone wolf and the situation is contained. There are a couple of issues with his assurances.
The first is, if this is a lone wolf attack, why did the prime minister say that he wants the state security apparatus to bring the mastermind to justice?
“Based on preliminary information received, I urge the police to find the mastermind and throw the book at them,” Anwar Ibrahim said.
This of course indicates that the slain terrorist was merely a tool and not the intelligence behind the attack.
So, was this a lone wolf attack or a coordinated effort by a cell operating within the district?
Furthermore, the arrest of various individuals and the inspector-general of police’s public comments suggest that this was not merely a lone wolf operation but a planned attack to acquire weapons for other unknown purposes.
The IGP then issued another clarification backing up the narrative of the home minister that this was a lone wolf operation.
This dissonance between the political apparatus and the state security apparatus further creates a chaotic atmosphere that religious extremists thrive on.
Power of one
The second issue is that lone wolf attacks are perhaps more devastating than planned coordinated attacks by known groups simply because the state security apparatus has no intelligence on them.
The post-9/11 security landscape has been defined by lone wolf terrorist attacks and in the Malaysian context, recent attempted terrorist attacks on the KK Mart stores are the definition of lone wolf attacks.
Keep in mind, the dead terrorist in this police station attack had no criminal record.
The connective tissue between his act was that he was allegedly radicalised by his father who was a known Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) member and who no doubt was on the list that Saifuddin thinks keeps the JI situation under control.
An important factor which we should consider when discussing this subject is the question of deradicalisation (I despise the term “rehabilitation”) that Saifuddin referred to when discussing JI.
The home minister said: “The police approach is to continue interacting with them to ensure the rehabilitation process continues and not be a threat to the community.
“Alhamdulillah, this JI (movement) is still under control and I believe the police have the experience to manage (a similar incident at the Ulu Tiram police station) based on the database and patterns of the incidents.”
You have to wonder how much interaction and rehabilitation went on between the state security apparatus and this family who were living in seclusion and carrying out activities in secret which resulted in the deaths of two state security personnel.
Keep in mind that Nasir Abbas, a former member of JI who now cooperates with the Indonesian authorities in its deradicalisation programmes, said of Riduan Isamuddin aka Encep Nurjaman aka Hambali as “so eloquent and so clever. You couldn’t help but be left with a good impression of him”.
Remember that Hambali was carrying out his activities of planning, recruiting and evangelising in a small village in Selangor.
How many other men that give a good impression operate under the radar of the state and carry out sub rosa activities or maybe even activities out in the open which conform to the narrative of the state but are methods of radicalisation that turn average citizens against the state?
Mind you the process of deradicalisation is an effective tool in the arsenal of the state but this has to be done in a manner which integrates radicalised families or individuals into mainstream society without compromising the security of the homeland.
The Indonesian experience, which is a combination of ruthless military and legal action with the softer approach of deradicalisation, seems to have worked.
In a 2023 interview with Alif Satria, a researcher at the department of politics and social change at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Indonesia, Al Jazeera reported that “deradicalisation programmes led by the police in the early 2000s were also critical in ensuring that those arrested did not re-engage with hardline groups once they were released”.
“As a result, Indonesia has managed to keep its recidivism rate at around 11 percent,” Alif said.
Fertile ecosystem for lone wolves
The situation in Malaysia is different. Mainstream political rhetoric and policy are determined by race and religion, which more often than not share many similarities with the extreme ideas of these cells or individuals.
What we are dealing with is groups or individuals who think that the state is not going far enough when it comes to the theocratic state project.
We are dealing with groups or individuals who think that there should only be one R in the 3R (race, religion and royalty) which is what makes them so dangerous to the mainstream Malay political establishment.
But the problem is that because of the way politics is defined in this country, what we are left with is ample recruiting grounds in the forms of polarised universities, unchecked madrasahs and independent preachers who are coddled by the state and of course a political apparatus which radicalises mainstream politics with race and religion.
This is a fertile ecosystem for lone wolves to be nurtured. These religious extremists view Malaysian society as one big happy family, meaning that, unlike the mainstream political establishment, they view Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians as equal on their hunting grounds.
These two slain police officers are proof of this.
A certain section of the Malaysian polity is always demonised as enemies of Islam. What attacks like these demonstrate is that the enemy is within.
Until the state realises this, there is no safety or security from lone wolves. - Mkini
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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