ASEAN Beat | Security | Southeast Asia

The Islamic State Is Targeting Youth in Malaysia

On March 6, Malaysian authorities announced the arrests of six youths on terrorism charges linked to the Islamic State (IS). The arrests were a result of a multi-state operation that took place on February 14 and 15 in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Kedah, Terengganu, and Johor. The six arrested were aged between 16 and 21 years, and three were minors below the age of 18. The suspects were charged with pledging allegiance to IS, spreading IS-related propaganda, planning attacks, and possessing IS-related material.

The authorities claim that the youths were motivated by “the conflict and geopolitical crisis in the Middle East” and were active on social media, encrypted communication apps, and gaming platforms. While the authorities have noted that the security situation in the country remains under control, the arrests highlight several key trends.

Decreasing Age of Terrorism-related Offenders

The February arrests highlighted a concerning trend – the involvement of youths and minors in terror-related activities in Malaysia. For example, the Ulu Tiram attack in May 2024 was carried out by a youth who was 21 years of age. In the past, several youths have been put under surveillance for extremist-related activity in the country. This mirrors global trends, where youths are increasingly getting arrested for involvement with terror groups such as IS. For example, nearly two-thirds of IS-linked arrests in Europe in 2024 involved teenagers.

In March 2024, a 15-year-old teenager carried out a stabbing attack in Zurich after pledging allegiance to IS. In May of the same year, a 14-year-old girl was arrested in Graz, Montenegro, for plotting an IS-inspired attack. Three months later, three youths aged 15, 17, and 19 were arrested for plotting an attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna. In September 2025, French authorities nabbed a 17-year-old on suspicion of planning attacks in the country and the head of France’s DGSI Internal Security Directorate noted that a “new generation of French teenagers were being wooed” by IS ideology.

Closer to home, the Singaporean authorities foiled several terrorism plots involving youths. In January 2026, Singapore’s Internal Security Department arrested a 14-year-old for plotting attacks against the LGBTQ community in Singapore and a nightclub in Bali. Since 2020, eight out of the nine pro-IS-related arrests in Singapore involved youths under the age of 20. Apart from pro-IS ideology, at least three youths in Singapore have been arrested for involvement in right-wing extremism (RWE) and for plotting attacks since 2020.

The Use of Social Media, Encrypted Messaging and Gaming Platforms

The six arrested Malaysian youths were active users of social media and had shifted to closed groups on encrypted messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord after initial conversations with other supporters. This is typical of pro-IS radicalization and recruitment among Malaysians, sometimes referred to as a “funnel” where potential recruits are gradually filtered into closed groups and cells on encrypted platforms. Two of them formed their own pro-IS chat groups on WhatsApp and Telegram, whilst a third shared bombmaking manuals and IS propaganda on TikTok and Discord.

Several of the youths arrested were active on the popular gaming platform Roblox, which has been linked to several terrorism cases among youths elsewhere. The Malaysian authorities noted that Roblox was used as a “medium to shape the suspects’ minds towards radical ideologies.” The 14-year-old youth who was arrested in Singapore early this year was also found to have been a Roblox user. At least two other teenagers who were arrested for pro-IS related activities in Singapore were found to have used the same platforms.

A 2025 study by Moustafa Ayad noted that a younger cadre of supporters spread across various online and digital platforms is “forming the backbone of an unofficial ecosystem of Islamic State support.” In Europe, a wave of arrests involving 11 teenagers in France, Belgium and Switzerland revealed a “networked group of minors across borders sharing jihadi content online, inhabiting the same spaces online, with some elements of the same network plotting attacks.” Another recent study noted how extremist narratives on Discord have been serving as echo chambers and radicalizing youth.

Social media has played a central role in the radicalization pathways of Malaysians since the height of the IS, along with offline factors such as marginalization and disenfranchisement. Most of the pro-IS terror-related arrests in Malaysia have had a digital signature, and the recent arrests signal a continuing trend. The discovery of a younger cohort of youths radicalized through gaming platforms in Malaysia was only a matter of time, given how the landscape of terrorist recruitment has shifted to digital gaming platforms.

Decentralized Networks, Operational Threats

Apart from the decreasing age of the suspects, the use of encrypted messaging platforms has facilitated the decentralization of pro-IS networks. The WhatsApp group the suspects were part of had up to 1,000 members, who were both local and foreign. The group was active for almost a year. In recent times, pro-IS supporters tend to coalesce around like-minded individuals who end up motivating each other to carry out attacks, with some of them acting as virtual planners.

The nature of the communications and the level of knowledge transfer that took place........

© The Diplomat