Mahatir Mohamad, conspiracy theorist and former prime minister of Malaysia, offers his thoughts on regional Islamic terrorism.

At a conference in Malaysia organised partly by the Center For Moderate Moslem Indonesia to promote Islamic unity in the world Mahatir was questioned on the activities of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group formerly led by the slain Dr Azahari.

He said it was difficult to know if the group was definitely still active in Indonesia since it was an underground movement. Malaysia, he said, would hunt them down if they returned from Indonesia (many of the top JI operatives are Malaysian nationals).

It’s really easy for that group to conceal themselves in Indonesia since there are 220 million people in Indonesia whereas in Malaysia there is only about 20 million so it’s easier to catch them.
(Memang cukup mudah bagi kelompok itu untuk bersembunyi di Indonesia yang penduduknya 220 juta, kalau di Malaysia yang sekitar 20 jutaan, tentu lebih mudah menangkapnya.)

Ho hum but would the real Doctor Mahatir stand up? Ah, here he is:

People like Amrozi and Imam Samudera are evidence of the anger caused by the actions of the west, America, and Israel, those who have annexed or colonized Palestine.
(Orang-orang seperti Amrozi, juga Imam Samudera merupakan bukti kemarahan atas perlakukan politik pihak Barat, Amerika Serikat, dan Israel yang menganeksasi atau menjajah Palestina.)

The causes of terrorism have to be dealt with, he said. The causes are Jewish-American outrages committed against the Palestinians. He offered some advice for would be terrorists:

If they are really angry and want to fight Israel and America just go there. But don’t come back to your homeland and look for soft targets. That’s called abuse and those who become victims are us.
(Semestinya kalau mereka marah dan hendak melawan Israel, Amerika, pergilah ke sana. Tetapi mereka kembali ke tanah air dan mencari soft target. Itu namanya penganiayaan dan yang menjadi mangsa adalah kita.)