KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 ― After France issued a travel advisory urging its citizens to be wary of the Islamic State (IS) threat in several Muslim countries including Malaysia, Putrajaya has urged other western nations to issue the same warning to travellers entering their own backyards.
Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, in responding to the French advisory, pointed out yesterday that the terror group is not just recruiting militants from Islamic countries but from western nations as well.
“If they want to give an advisory, I think the same applies to their own country, and not just unique to one country,” the minister was quoted saying in The Star Online after opening the Larut Umno annual meeting at the Taiping Golf Resort in Kamunting, Perak, yesterday.
He reportedly said threats from IS also affects Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
France recently issued a travel advisory urging its citizens to be vigilant in several countries, including Malaysia, over fears of a threat from Islamic State militants.
The advisory came after French tourist Hervé Gourdel was beheaded in Algeria last Wednesday by terrorists claiming to belong to Islamic State, and as local police intelligence revealed that Malaysians were among those who have travelled to Syria to join the terror group.
Malaysia has designated Islamic State a terrorist group. The organisation was formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
US paper The Washington Post reported yesterday US president Barack Obama as saying that America had underrated the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
