PAS claims no proof of JI threat

PAS alleged today that a recent high-powered briefing by top police officers to Higher Education Ministry officials did not disclose proof of Jemaah Islamiah (JI) recruiting local university students.

PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub threatened to reveal the details of the briefing, said to have been held a few days ago, if the government did not state its official stand and show proof of terror threats by the end of this Parliamentary session.

“We request that this issue is explained in Parliament. We will give them a time frame and if they fail to abide by this, I will expose the exact details of the briefing.

“We have the information on what happened and from what I was told, there were no evidence, empirical or otherwise, that was presented to the ministry on this JI issue,” he told a joint press conference with other PAS MPs at the Parliament lobby here today.

He said that the meeting had been held between the Higher Education Ministry, the Inspector-General of Police as well as several high-ranking police officials.

The opposition had last week slammed the government for capitalising on unproven information that terrorism threats existed in the country.

They claimed the government was fabricating such threats in order to divert the people’s attention away from issues of national concern, such as the sports betting fiasco, Apco Worldwide and others.

Salahuddin claimed that the government was employing a similar tactic used by the US government to use terror threats to create fear among its people.

“I am worried because this could be a global agenda. Especially after the Prime Minister’s meeting with US president Barack Obama recently, we see this agenda being played up again.

“They are using this method to divert form the true issues at hand,” he said.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan recently told reporters that terror group JI had been recruiting students from local universities to join their ranks.

“I can confirm that no evidence was given that these local universities house terrorist nests. Perhaps the government plans to use some people as their scapegoats,” said Salahuddin.

PAS vice-president Datuk Mahfuz Omar concurred with his colleague and slammed Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein for calling the opposition “crazy” for their allegations regarding the government’s claims.

“He (Hishamuddin) said (PKR de facto leader) Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and I were crazy. It is clear from what Salahuddin is saying today that the police themselves had failed to provide proof that these threats exist.

“We are not crazy but we are facing crazy politics that drive us crazy,” he said.

Mahfuz added that the police had also failed to prove that a group of terrorists had allegedly been planning attacks on two places of worship in Penang and in Selangor.

He was referring to the case of when nine foreigners and one local were arrested in an anti-terror raid in Gombak earlier this year. The foreigners were later deported to their home countries in April, where they were further detained.

The group, allegedly linked to al Qaeda, were reportedly on a mission to recruit members for the international terror group and the Jemaah Islamiah (JI).

According to a report in an English daily, the group comprising four Syrians, two Yemenis, two Nigerians, a Jordanian and a Malaysian, were planning to blow up two places of worship in Penang and Selangor but were caught before they could carry out the acts.

PAS’ Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad accused the government of attempting to create “Islamophobia” among the people, in preparation for the next general election.

“This terrorist term has always been used by these people to create fear in public. They want to create this fear of Islam among the non-Muslims.

“This is a weapon used by the US and by the Israelis,” he said.

Khalid added that this tactic could be detrimental to the country for it would only serve to scare away tourists and possible investors.

“We are shooting ourselves in our own foot. The government should not, just for the sake of its own political survival, gamble away the country’s future and peace by creating this Islamophobia,” he said.



comments


Even Osama and gang have decided to take a break so how is it possible for JI to break into the local scene. This scare tactic certainly reminds me of storie told in the dark to enlarge the imagination and keep one housebound. The name of the game is spin and divert.