Friday 29 Mar 2024
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(June 24): Newly elected PAS central committee member Norazli Musa has denied having any link to militant group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), after a photograph of him with Middle Eastern-looking men was uploaded on Facebook.

He said the photograph was taken last year during one of his visits to Syria to deliver aid under the banner of Muslim Care Malaysia and insisted that it had nothing to do with Isis.

In the photograph, Norazli (second from left) and another Malaysian (fourth from left) were pictured with three Middle Eastern-looking men, one armed with what is believed to be an AK47 automatic rifle.

Norazli said the man who was seen carrying the firearm was the airport security personnel and not an Isis member as perceived. The other two Middle Eastern men flanking them were his escorts.

He said the photograph was being circulated online with the objective of tarnishing his name and reputation as PAS's central committee member.

"It is to embarrass me and an attempt to link PAS with Isis, when there is no such thing. If I have any connection with Isis, the police would have arrested me already.

"I have been to Syria many times under the Muslim Care Malaysia banner, sending aid and supplies to the displaced people of the country," he told The Malaysian Insider today.

"We were there at the airport and met with the security personnel there. That is their security guard, the one holding the firearm. We just wanted to take pictures with them. Nothing to do with Isis or whatever," he said.

In the photo, the man standing to the left of Norazli, however, appears to be making the hand signal commonly used by Isis fighters as seen in media coverage of the militants.

Some analysts have described the single index finger symbol as a sign depicting the group's belief in the "tawhid", or oneness of God, which in Isis's extremist interpretation is extended to include a rejection of pluralism and non-fundamentalist ideas.

Norazli said news on the circulation of the photograph had reached party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, who advised him and the Muslim NGO to stay away from Syria for the time being for security reasons.

"He did not encourage us to go there again. Enough that we send the aid and needful items to Syrian refugees at the Turkish border.”

Norazli said prior to this, he has been active in voluntary and charity work, including sending aid to Gaza, Aceh, Lebanon and Kashmir.

Last year, sacked Kedah PAS Youth information chief Ustaz Lotfi Ariffin courted controversy when he disclosed his involvement in the ongoing civil war in Syria.

He died in September in Syria after succumbing to injuries sustained in the war. Lotfi had reportedly been with a group of Malaysian Isis fighters when they were caught in an ambush by forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad. – The Malaysian Insider

 

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