Malaysian authorities have warned that terrorist group ISIS plotted to attack a Carlsberg Brewery near Kuala Lumpur, as first reported to the South China Post. The group is said to be gaining support in Malaysia, which operates rules forbidding the consumption of alcohol by Muslims but also has a vibrant brewing sector because of the large number of non-Muslim Chinese in the country.
In the last seven months authorities in Malaysia have arrested 19 people for being involved with ISIS and they have 20 confirmed cases of terrorists traveling to Syria to join in the fighting. However experts say the number of Malaysians that have traveled to the Middle East is likely to be much higher than the official figure. The radicals who have stayed at home want to the topple the largely secular regimes in both Malaysia and nearby Indonesia.
Ayub Khan, a senior official for Malaysia’s Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division, said: “During questioning, they [the suspects] admitted one of their main objectives was to attack the government. They also discussed planning attacks against a disco, pubs in Kuala Lumpur and a Carlsberg factory in Petaling Jaya.”
The City of Petaling Jaya (known by locals as PJ) is approximately 20 minutes drive from Kuala Lumpur. Meaning that any terrorists based there would have little difficulty in accessing the capital city, or the airport which is a stopover for hundreds of flights from Europe to the Far East.
At least one Malaysian, 26-year-old factory worker Ahmad Tarmimi Maliki, died as a suicide bomber in Iraq in May. Indonesia has now banned support for ISIS and is warning its citizens that they will face consequences if they join the group.
Indonesia is the worlds most populous Muslim nation and so a spread of Jihadism there would represent a major setback in the global war on terrorism.
Despite their reticence about ISIS’s tactics elsewhere the Indonesian leader of Al-Qaeda has expressed support for the Caliphate. Abu Bakar Bashir is in prison for leading the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah, which was behind the Bali bomb that killed 202 people in 2002 and another attack in 2005 that killed 20.
It is now thought there are at least 56 Indonesians’s fightings in Syria and Iraq. Indonesian counter-terrorism expert Noor Huda Ismail said: “This is just like veterans from the wars in Afghanistan. Apart from Malaysia and Indonesia, there are also recruits from the Philippines going to Syria.”
He continued: “[Islamic State] is also far richer and better armed than Al-Qaeda from taking over banks and weapons in places it has over-run. It can afford to pay each fighter who joins them US$250 every month.”
The planned brewery attack is likely to focus minds in Malaysia as it is one of the top ten biggest consumers of alcohol. Brands like Tiger, Singha and Carlsberg are extremely popular despite the relatively high tax.
Despite problems in both Malaysia and Indonesia they still have far fewer fighters in Syria and Iraq than the UK does. As previously reported on Breitbart London at least 1500 British militants have fought for the jihadi group ISIS. The claim came from Khalid Mahmood MP, who says that British Muslims are being radicalised at events like “pop-up restaurants”.
The popularity of radical Islam in Britain is causing a nightmare for the security services, who are struggling to keep pace with the amount of radical material being put on social media.