KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 14 — Malaysian Muslims eager for a taste of militant religious action abroad should mind that foreign jihadist groups won’t hesitate to kill people on a whim, even though the act goes against the fundamentals of Islam, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.

The former prime minister claimed the jihadist movements have also convinced Sunni Muslims that it was okay to even kill fellow Muslims from a different school of thought, namely Shiites, by classifying the latter group as infidels who can be killed.

“You see how they kill. They line them up, then shoot with guns. Is this fair? There is no trial and no anything,” Dr Mahathir told Malay broadsheet Mingguan Malaysia in an interview published today.

“Islam prioritise justice. When you punish, you punish justly. This was said many times in the Quran. Is it just that you kill them just because they’re allegedly non-Muslim, without any trial?”

The 89-year-old also pointed out that although some Shiites similarly kill the Sunnis, the Quran did not command the two denominations to be at war with each other.

“In Quran, there is only one Islam. We are the ones who made them into three types of Islam, four types. Now, there are 1,000 types of Islam… This is not right.”

This is not the first time Dr Mahathir has urged Muslims in the country to put aside their political differences and unite for the sake of national harmony.

In June, Dr Mahathir said that the Quran tells Muslims to reconcile two enemies to achieve peace, not to kill over mere differences in political ideologies.

The former prime minister pointed out that those who have been killed in the conflict had not attacked Malaysia or its people, or caused any unrest in the country.

Just last week, a Muslim fighter from Kulim, Kedah known as “Abu Muhajir” whose real name is believed to be Mohamad Fadlan Shah, 21, became the latest Malaysian jihadist fighter to purportedly be killed in strife-torn Syria.

Former Kedah PAS member Mohd Lotfi Ariffin, who was sacked from the party for his jihadist activities, reportedly fell into coma following the same attack.

Last month, a 52-year-old jihadist fighter called Mat Soh or “Abu Turab”, allegedly died from shelling in strife-torn Syria while defending the town of Arzeh with several other jihadist fighters.

Malaysian police intelligence also warned last month that citizens who joined the Islamist militant group Islamic State (IS) to launch strikes in Iraq and Syria, are now training their sights on their home government and several other targets in the country.

The police said 19 suspected local militants have been arrested between April and June this year while they were on their way to Turkey and Syria for training and support from IS under the guise of “humanitarian work”.

The group was planning to establish a hardline Southeast Asian Islamic caliphate which would include Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore.

Putrajaya has designated the IS, formerly known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as a terrorist group.

The group has been in spotlight again today with a video claiming to behead its hostage, British aid worker David Haines, its third public murder so far.