This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 27, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: More Malaysians who went to Syria as part of the Islamic State (IS) militants had signed up to become suicide bombers, Bukit Aman said yesterday.

The federal police’s Special Branch Counterterrorism Division principal assistant director Datuk Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said the fighters, who had been brainwashed into thinking that such acts were a form of martyrdom, had no qualms about waiting in line for their turn to become human bombs.

“Becoming a suicide bomber is not easy, but they are willing to wait for their turn. We may call it suicidal, but to them it is a holy act and a path to heaven,” he said in a seminar organised by the Pahang state government.

The seminar was held to explain and discuss issues such as terrorism, the IS threat and 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

Ayob Khan said to date, six Malaysians had died as suicide bombers in Iraq and Syria, the latest being two brothers and a man from Terengganu.

“Among them was also a 22-year-old third-year medical student from the northern part of the country,” he added.

From the latest information obtained, Ayob Khan said there were 47 Malaysians in Syria, compared with 72 from previous records.

The New Straits Times (NST) reported on Jan 11 that Mohd Amirul Ahmad Rahim from Terengganu was the bomber in the Raqqa incident, and Mohamad Syazwan Salim in Tikrit.

Quoting sources, the NST said Mohd Amirul, 26, left his family in Terengganu to join Isis in Syria in October 2014, and took up the name of Abu Uqashah Malizi.

Mohamad Syazwan was 31 and from Selangor.  — The Malaysian Insider