A Malaysian woman has created ripples among security circles in Indonesia for spreading pro-Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) material supporting extremist ideology such as jihad, or holy war, through her WhatsApp group.
The woman had started her online preaching early last year, opening and closing several WhatsApp groups, each with fewer than 100 members, mostly Indonesian men,
The Straits Times learnt this from Mr Muh Taufiqurrohman, a senior researcher at the Jakarta-based think-tank, Centre for Radicalism and Deradicalisation Studies (Pakar).
The woman has been pushing the ideology of the international terrorist group through the sermons of Aman Abdurrahman, leader of the ISIS-linked Jamaah Ansharut Daulah who was sentenced to death in Indonesia for masterminding gun and suicide attacks in Jakarta in 2016.
Her messages include ISIS propaganda videos, songs praising suicide bombers and statements calling the police “kafir”, or unbelievers.
Since the suicide bombing at the cathedral in Makassar city on March 28, members of her Whatsapp group have been discussing future attacks using explosive vests.
Pakar believes that the authorities in Indonesia and Malaysia are aware of her activities.
A Straits Times check on her Facebook profile found postings of sermons by radical clerics, including Aman Abdurrahman, photographs of Muslims abused by Western soldiers, and statements about oppression of Muslims by entities she called “taghut” – an Arabic term loosely used to refer to tyrants or apostates – and “kafir”.
Some of her 1,000 Facebook friends had slammed democracy as the “ideology of the kafir”, and carried profiles such as “works at the Court of the Hereafter” and “aims to be a future corpse to seek God’s blessings”.
• Dian Yulia Novi was the first known case of a female militant in Indonesia. Police arrested her in December 2016 for planning to detonate a rice-cooker bomb in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta.
• Puji Kuswati and her two daughters were part of a family of six who in May 2018 set off bombs at three churches in Surabaya city in East Java, making them the first female suicide bombers in Indonesia.
• Ika Puspitasari was convicted in 2017 over her plan to carry out a suicide bombing in Bali on New Year’s Eve in 2016.
• Solimah, wife of suspected terrorist Abu Hamzah, blew herself and her young child up during a police raid in Sibolga, North Sumatra, in March 2019.
• Fitri Adriana and her husband stabbed Indonesia’s then chief security minister Wiranto as he was getting out of a vehicle in Banten province on Java island in October 2019.
• An unnamed Malaysian housewife was arrested in May 2018 over a plot to crash an explosives-rigged car into voters during the Malaysian general election, as well as non-Muslim places of worship.
• Ulfah Handayani Saleh and her husband set off bombs at a cathedral in Jolo town, the stronghold of extremist group Abu Sayyaf, in the southern Philippines, during Sunday mass in January 2019.
• Two women, wives of ISIS militants, blew themselves up in separate incidents targeting soldiers in Jolo town last August.
• Syaikhah Izzah Zahrah Al Ansari became the first woman detained for radicalism under the Internal Security Act in Singapore in June 2017. She has since been released on a Restriction Order.
The former infant-care assistant had actively posted and shared pro-ISIS material online. She was intent on joining the terror network and was actively planning to travel to Syria with her young child.
Arlina Arshad
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