Malaysia a haven for training terrorists?

 No News Is Bad News

For image in fo, go to https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-malaysia-became-a-training-ground-for-hamas (How Malaysia Became a Training Ground for Hamas)

Malaysia a haven for training terrorists?

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 31. 2023: On one hand a Hamas terrorist cell commander captured by Israel revealed that he was trained in Malaysia to carry out cross-border attacks using powered parachute.

On the other, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar denied that his country had ever allowed Hamas fighters to train on its soil.

So, who are we to believe? Who’s lying? Your gues is as good as mine.

No News Is Bad News reproduces two news reports on the issue:

Hamas fighter revealed he was trained in Malaysia

Astro Awani

Julai 31, 2014 10:30 MYT

A Hamas fighter revealed he was trained in Malaysia to carry out cross-border attacks using powered parachute.

 A Hamas fighter under remand by Israeli authorities revealed that he was trained in Malaysia to carry out cross-border attacks using powered parachute, according to report by the Jerusalem Post.

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said the suspect, a Hamas cell commander captured in Khan Younis (a city in the southern Gaza Strip), told interrogators the training was part of Hamas’ preparations to oppose an Israel Defence Force (IDF) ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The suspect is reported to have joined Hamas in 2007 and became a part of its military wing known as Izzadin Kassam.

He reportedly travelled to Malaysia in 2012, where he and nine other Hamas members learned how to fly a powered parachute.

Shin Bet said he joined Hamas’s reserves unit in the same year, which was tasked with special operations during wartime.

In 2013, he joined an elite cell where he received a Kalashnikov or better known as the AK-47 to carry with him at all times.

He was later trained to use M-16 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and bombs and was taught how to kidnap soldiers, and tunnel warfare.

Shin Bet said he was scheduled to train others in the same combat skills this month.

Malaysia denies it trained Hamas operatives

Minister dismisses claims by captured operative that terror group had received paragliding instruction ahead of attack

By ADIV STERMAN 31 July 2014, 4:45pm

Members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, in the central Gaza Strip, on June 30, 2014. (photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

 

Malaysia’s Deputy Home Affairs Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar denied Thursday that his country had ever allowed Hamas fighters to train on its soil.

The statement came a day after the Israeli Shin Bet security service said it had apprehended a highly trained operative from the Gaza-based Islamist group who claimed to have taken part in a week-long military-style exercise in the southeast Asian country.

“It does not matter what kind of freedom-fighting group they belong to, even those against Israel, we have never given permission to have such training here,” Jaafar told local Malaysian media, according to the Bangkok Post.

The Malaysian minister added that although his country backs the Palestinians’ national ambitions, “the report is incorrect.”

On Wednesday, a Hamas operative in Israeli custody confessed that at least 10 fighters affiliated with the terror group had gone abroad to Malaysia for a week of paragliding training, in anticipation of perpetrating a terror attack on a southern Israeli town.

The terrorists had planned to bypass the Gaza border security fence by paragliding directly into a town.

The Hamas detainee, who was recruited to the Islamist terror group in 2007 and joined one of the group’s special units in 2010, said his squad had conducted a second training session in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, according to the Shin Bet.

The Hamas operative was arrested near the Palestinian city of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on the night between July 21 and July 22.