New act proposed to better combat terrorism - Zahid Hamidi

He said the proposed new act would further strengthen the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA) and the Prevention of Crime Act.

"Such a new act would not only further facilitate the fight against terrorism but would also enable early measures to be taken to prevent the recruitment of volunteer militants."

Ahmad Zahid said this at a news conference after attending the Gempur Magic programme organised by the Selangor Youth Council and National Civics Bureau at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, here, today.

He said the spread of Islamic militant activities to this country must be stemmed immediately, what more with the attempts by militant groups to recruit school students for such activities through the social websites.

The minister said there would be continuous monitoring of social websites by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and the social media monitoring units of the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) and Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) to curb militant activities.

He said there would also be sharing of information with the MAF if there were militant training nests for recruits detected.

"We are confident of arresting more people and gathering information which all this while was very much needed to ensure that Malaysia is not turned into a training ground by militant groups for jihadists to be sent to fight in Syria, Iraq and other turbulent countries."

He also said that hopefully, the meeting between the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) could resolve problems in the southern Philippines, particularly in Mindanao, thus also checking the recruitment of future jihadists there.