Quranic and hadith manipulated by IS militants via social media to coax new recruits

GEORGE TOWN: Manipulating the Quranic verse and the Prophet Muhammad's hadith, to justify the so-called militant group IS's inverse struggle via social media, provided a polular medium in enlisting new recruits.
This has been revealed in the police investigations and study during interrogations of Malaysians, who were arrested for their involvement with the militant group.
Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division principal assistant director, Datuk Ayub Khan Mydin Pitchay said 95% of the detainees were influenced after seeing videos or reading about the IS.
"Our probe has revealed that 95% of them were recruited through the social media and we are having issues in blocking them as most of the militant members are savvy in utilising current technology," he said.
He was speaking to reporters after presenting a talk about IS militant group organised by Masjid Kampung Rawa, here last night.
On April 16, Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said 95 Malaysians were detained over alleged links with the IS militant group.
Ayub Khan said 63 were detected to be in Syria to fight alongside the militants there, but the figure could be more, possibly up to 80 Malaysians.
He believed the effective approach to curb the militant's influence, was collaborating with the Islamic Religious Department in every state to give talks to the local community at mosques and suraus.
He said role of the police was in terms of enforcement by arresting those involved in the militant activities while other relevant parties would give talks explaining to the public about the inverse IS struggle, which did not represent Islam.
The youths were easily influenced by this group, he said adding that "If we block IS in the Youtube, they may use other social media like WeeChat and other media confidentially to propagate their discourse."
Ayub Khan said the police were cooperating with the Interpol to investigate Malaysians involved with the militant group abroad, but it was difficult to conduct probes as these countries were in turmoil. – Bernama