Terrorism ‘Will Only Get Uglier,’ Malaysia’s Mahathir Predicts

The global terrorism problem will worsen unless Western countries review Middle East policies that have fueled crises in the region, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told BenarNews in an interview this week.

He cited the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sectarian warfare in Syria, Yemen and Libya as examples of outcomes of Western policies that, in his view, have driven a small fraction of people to terrorism.

“IS is responding to desperate people,” Mahathir said, when asked if the so-called Islamic State group would become a more significant problem for Southeast Asia in the future.

Until Western countries “try to get to the bottom of this problem, to recognize the mistakes that they have made … there will be an escalation, I think, of terrorism all over the world, including in Malaysia.”

Malaysia can do its best to defend itself against terrorism, “but until the causes are handled by all countries in the world, I think it will only get uglier,” he said during an interview at his office in Putrajaya.

“We will not know where the attack will be launched. The person will not be wearing a uniform. There will be no armies. One person can just take a car and kill 80 people. Where? Nobody can tell.”

‘They will not blame themselves’

The existence of IS grows out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that dates back 60 years to the establishment of Israel, claimed Mahathir, Malaysia’s longest serving prime minister, who held the office from 1981 to 2003.

In recent years, the 91-year-old Mahathir, who is known as Dr. M, has been a fierce critic of the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak.

In commenting about terrorism, he said that present-day Western policies, including ongoing support for Israel no matter its conduct, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the training of rebel groups in Syria, Yemen and Libya continued to exacerbate the problem.

Western countries have tried but failed to confine the violence to Arab countries, he added.

“Of course some of these people are frustrated, very angry. They don’t care whether they die or live. So now they want to go to the countries of those who were the cause of their problem, basically,” Mahathir said.

“But the world will not see it because the press is totally controlled by the Western countries. They will not blame themselves. They blame Islam, Muslims and, you know, lack of intelligence...but not the real cause. The real cause is that they have mishandled the Middle East over the last 60 over years.”

‘It’s not religion’

For many months, Malaysia’s government has warned that Islamic State in particular poses a threat to national security. According to officials, young Malaysian Muslims are at risk of being recruited via social media to join IS’s cause in the Middle East, and that domestic IS supporters or IS members returning from combat tours in Syria or Iraq could plot terror attacks back home.

Last week, Malaysian authorities said they had disrupted a plot by IS supporters to launch terrorist attacks on the eve of Independence Day, which fell on Aug. 31. In late June, IS claimed its first attack on Malaysian soil when eight people were injured in a grenade attack at a nightclub in Puchong, outside Kuala Lumpur.

Since 2013, Malaysian authorities have arrested at least 230 suspected IS members, out of whom at least 72 have been charged in court.

According to Mahathir, most IS members are Muslims from countries destroyed by violence.

“It’s not religion. It’s not Islam. If you follow Islam you know [IS] is forbidden in Islam. But they are Muslims and it is their country which has been destroyed even and many of their people have been killed.”

Muslim leaders and teachers inadvertently contribute to radicalization when they vent their anger over the problems of the Muslim world in sermons and lectures, he added.

“[T]hey too are affected by what is happening in the Middle East. They are angry, they are frustrated, and they talk about this thing to the people who are ignorant, and these people feel that they should do something about it...they should help fight,” he said.

He said he did not think the Malaysian government was doing enough to tackle the IS problem – and expressed doubts about the impact of a counter-messaging center Malaysia is about to launch with help from the United States to counter radical recruitment efforts.

It would be better to redirect the efforts of clerics, he suggested.

“You need to actually instruct people who are talking about the religion, who are propagating, teaching the ways of Islam, to tell the people what Islam really wants them to do. … For example, very simple, that Islam teaches us that all Muslims are brothers … They should be gathered and told that they must propagate the right teaching of Islam.”

Nani Yusof and Hata Wahari contributed to this report.