The 21-year-old attacker wounded a third officer with the same machete before being shot to dead. The Royal Malaysia Police, stunned by the attack, quickly raided the suspect’s house, located just 100-metre from the police station. Five members of his family, aged between 19 and 62, were arrested, including the terrorist’s 62-year-old father – a “known Jemaah Islamiah member”.

The authorities found “numerous Jemaah Islamiah-related paraphernalia” from the small, wooden dilapidated house. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Razarudin Husain said the man could have attempted to seize firearms from the police station. The attack at about 2am saw the Special Branch mobilized to track down more than 20 members of Jemaah Islamiah in the state of Johor alone.

Interestingly, in what appears to be damage control – even a cover-up – the police chief Razarudin made a spectacular U-turn when he parroted his boss, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution, that the terrorist was a “lone wolf” despite obvious links to Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terrorist network linked to al-Qaeda. The government cannot afford a major crisis of confidence.

Labelling the terror attack as a “lone wolf attack” was an afterthought, a tactical move to tone down the perception that the police force under the home minister was both clueless and incompetent. It was also to avoid blaming on Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, whose pro-Hamas, pro-Islamist and obsession on Islamist extremism and radicalization has greatly disappointed his own supporters.

However, the more Home Minister Saifuddin tries to cover-up the terrorism and insults people’s intelligence, the more it would backfire on Anwar administration. If the attacker was acting on his own and was not linked to the terrorist group as claimed, why the hell was the Special Branch ordered to track down on some 20 members of Jemaah Islamiah right after the attack?

The fact that neighbouring Singapore has issued a warning to its citizens to be vigilant when travelling to Johor speaks volumes that there is a possibility of a wider threat, suggesting that it may not be a lone wolf attack after all. Boosting its own security, Singapore has pre-emptively increased patrols and enhanced checks on travellers at its checkpoints.

Besides, if indeed the radicalized attacker was not a terrorist or not linked to Jemaah Islamiah, why police stations across the country are put on high alert and its security control being strengthened? And if the attacker was not a terrorist as Saifuddin and IGP Razarudin would like everyone to believe, how do you explain the Jemaah Islamiah materials found at his home?

Sure, if you believe the terrorist’s father, a known Jemaah Islamiah member, was teaching his son Mozart’s music instead of hacking people’s neck, then you should also believe in the tooth fairy. It’s also hard to believe that the rest of the family members were not involved, or had no prior knowledge of the attack. After all, Ulu Tiram is Jemaah Islamiah’s favourite playground.

Jemaah Islamiah is an affiliate of al-Qaeda, the terror group that carried out the 9/11 (September 11) attacks in the U.S. in 2001. Its spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir set up a religious school – popularly known as madrasah – in Ulu Tiram called “Luqmanul Hakiem” in the early 1990s. An Indonesian Muslim cleric, Bashir was in exile in Malaysia for 17 years during the secular New Order administration of President Suharto.

Best known for the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people and injured 209 people, the co-founder of Jemaah Islamiyah pledged allegiance in 2014 to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of ISIS or ISIL. He was jailed in March 2005, but later freed on appeal in June 2006, only to be jailed again in 2011. After completing two-thirds of his jail term, he was released in January 2021.

The same madrasah in Ulu Tiram also groomed Noordin Muhammad Top, the Asia’s most wanted terrorist who was the mastermind of the Jakarta hotel bombings in 2009. The 41-year-old Noordin was killed by Indonesian security forces on Sept 17, 2009. His partner, Mukhlas, was executed by the Indonesian authorities in 2008 for his role in the Bali terrorist attacks.

The violent Jemaah Islamiah also saw Malaysian former university lecturer Azahari Husin becoming a bombmaker – the technical mastermind behind the Bali bombings and several bomb attacks in Indonesia. Hambali, Indonesian terrorist known as Southeast Asia’s Osama bin Laden and the mastermind of Bali bombings, met his Sabahan wife at the same madrasah.

Hambali, once described by former U.S. President George W Bush as “one of the world’s most lethal terrorists”, together with his two Malaysian partners, Mohamed Farik Amin and Mohamed Nazir Lep, are currently being held in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The best part is Hambali, known as Riduan Isamuddin, was a permanent resident in Malaysia.

Yes, Malaysia is not only the favourite playground for terrorists, but also the breeding ground of Islamic extremism largely because the governments – past, present and future – choose to close both eyes over radicalization and terrorism. In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to suggest that the government was thrilled, even proud, that the country is harbouring foreign Muslim extremists.

From hate preacher Zakir Naik to Jemaah Islamiah leader Hambali, and from opposition PAS Islamist party president Abdul Hadi Awang to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, all played a role in pouring fuel to the fire of extremism, radicalization and eventually violent terrorism. It was absolutely hilarious when Saifuddin desperately urged the public not to link the latest attack on police station to religion.

Malaysia has become a hub where terrorists arrive and gather for festivals due to not only a good air transport network, but because they could do so without being disturbed by the authorities, as admitted by former deputy Inspector-General of Police Noor Rashid Ibrahim in 2019. And it is the preferred transit destination due to racism, extremism and corruption policies.

In 2017, Russell Salic, a 37-year-old Filipino doctor, revealed how he transferred money to Jasanizam Rosni in Johor on June 24, 2016, just days before an attack at the Movida pub in Puchong, Malaysia. In January 2019, the Malaysian Counter-Terrorism Division disclosed that the authorities have since 2013 arrested 453 people involved in ISIS-related activities.

When 35-year-old Dr Mahmud Ahmad, a lecturer from the University of Malaya Islamic Studies Faculty, was revealed as a suspected militant in 2014, eyebrows were raised over colleges and universities becoming breeding grounds for terrorists. Besides operating under the cover of being students in local institutions of higher learning, militants also masked their intention via local business ventures.

Previously, a 42-year-old Egyptian who worked as an educator at a religious school was one of the foreigners arrested by police in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur. Other Egyptians arrested included students at a higher learning institution in the Klang Valley and East Coast of Malaysia. Another arrested Egyptian worked as an Arabic teacher in Ampang, Selangor.

For decades, foreign terrorists have been using Malaysia as a “safe haven” for a transit and logistics centre by using legitimate or fake documentation, marrying locals to obtain a spouse visa, exploiting education facilities, or by doing business in the country. Eventually, these foreign terrorists would radicalize local Muslims, who would graduate to become a new generation of terrorists.

From throwing Molotov cocktails at Chinese-owned KK Super Mart to slaughtering Malay-Muslim police officers, Anwar Ibrahim should be proud that his Islamization ambition has become a great success. Don’t be surprise that tonnes of Hamas members have already established their terrorist cells in the country, thanks to the prime minister’s admiration, support and funding for the terror organization.

The burning question is why Jemaah Islamiah members were not thrown into detention centres, but instead allowed to roam and preach freely. On the same day the police force was humiliated with the police station attack, Istana Negara saw an attempted trespass involving two men with a parang or machete in their vehicle. It’s not rocket science that the intruders were not there to clean the bushes to prevent dengue.

The two suspects, aged 29 and 37, could be the same batch of young terrorist graduates like the attacker in Ulu Tiram who were trying their luck to put in practice what they had been taught in madrasah schools. They could be copycats of a shooting attempt in Istana Negara in Jakarta, Indonesia, on October 25, 2022. Of course, for political reason, the home minister will sweep everything under the carpet.

Another reason why Malaysia is becoming more extreme and dangerous has everything to do with education. Instead of fixing sagging economy, plunging currency, food shortage and high cost of living, PM Anwar transformed schools into his playground – bringing the Israel-Hamas geopolitical crisis into schools where teachers and innocent students carried firearms, albeit toy guns, while wrapping Palestinian keffiyeh scarf around their heads like jihadist militants.

To make matters worse, the chain of Islamic kindergartens linked to Islamist party PAS – Pusat Asuhan Tunas Islam (PASTI) – have been allowed to brainwash and indoctrinate young children since 1988 with radical and dubious Islamic studies with the intention of recruiting them as party members.