Islamic State conducts Operations in Southeast Asia

On Monday July 4th, Malaysian state police confirmed that Islamic State was responsible for the recent grenade attack at the Movida nightclub in Puchong, Malaysia. The attack occurred in the Selangor province of the island nation on June 28th, and according to reports, two suspects threw a small grenade into the club while patrons were watching coverage of the Euro 2016 football games. Combined, the nightclub assault left eight people wounded.

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Tan Sri Kahlid Abu Bakar told reporters that two male suspects were currently in custody, and that the security forces were continuing to search for an additional two suspects allegedly involved in the attack. The IGP also outlined that the attackers of the Movida killings were directly instructed by an IS fighter named Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, who confirmed the attack’s terror links in a Facebook post by  an “Abu Hamzah Al-Fateh.”

Following Wednesday’s attack, Jedi wrote on Facebook that “the first successful Islamic State attack on Malaysian soil” had taken place, and that “two soldiers of the caliphate in Malaysia have launched the first attack in the heart of the country, which is Kuala Lumpur, by targeting a nightclub filled with infidels using a grenade.”

According tothe IGP, Jedi is known to be one of the few Malaysians in Syria who is fighting for Islamic State. Additionally, police claim that the terrorist ordered the two men in custody to launch attacks in Malaysia on senior leaders of the government and senior leaders of the Malaysian police and judges. The IGP illustrated that these particular groups are being targeted because they are the ones who hinder jihadist activity in Malaysia.

In addition to the Malaysian nightclub attack, Islamic State terrorists attempted to blow up security officials in Java, Indonesia on Monday, July 4th. Reports from the world’s largest Muslim country illustrated that a suicide bomber drove up to a security outpost in the city of Solo by using a motorbike. The terrorist managed to do extensive damage to the street and the building, but only left one officer with minor injuries.

The Central Java police identified the attacker as 30-year old Nur Rohman, a man who had evaded arrest in a counter-terrorism operation in late 2015 and happened to be neighbors with a man who previously coordinated a suicide attack in Jakarta that killed eight people. Such dangerous jihadists are not uncommon in the city, however. Solo has long as a center for Indonesians strongly in favor of imposing Sharia law.Specifically, the city was home to Abu Bakar Bashir, the leader of the Bali bombings and his Al Mukmin Islamic Boarding School. The clerical leader has been in jail since 2011 over charges unrelated to his involvement in the 2002 bombings that left 202 dead.

The combined jihadist efforts in both Malaysia and Indonesia in the past week exemplifies the expanding threat that Islamic State poses in Southeast Asia. The ability to conduct attacks against enemies of Islamic State in the name of the terrorist organization outside its traditional battlefield in Southwest Asia and North Africa illustrates the diversified manner in which the group is extending its sphere of influence. Ultimately, these two attacks conducted in the name of the caliphate express the organization’s ultimate goal of establishing it’s rule over a Muslim world that extends beyond the Levant.