Malaysian with Singaporean wife and family have joined fight in Syria, report says

A 47-year-old Singaporean woman and her two teenage children are fighting alongside jihadists in Syria or supporting them, as more details emerged yesterday of this family first disclosed by Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean as Singaporeans who are taking part in the Syrian conflict.

The woman had gone to Syria with her 37-year-old Penang-born husband, Malaysia’s The Star newspaper reported yesterday. Her children — an 18-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son — are from a previous marriage and also Singapore citizens, the report added.

Previous reports had said the family of four were Malaysian citizens and that they were the first Malaysian family believed to be fighting in the ongoing Syrian civil war.

DPM Teo told Parliament in July that the woman and her children were among a handful of Singaporeans who had gone to Syria to take part in the conflict. The woman had gone there with her foreign husband, added Mr Teo, who is also Home Affairs Minister.

“The whole family is taking part in the conflict in various ways, either joining the terrorist groups to fight, or providing aid and support to the fighters,” Mr Teo had told Parliament, as he reiterated the Government’s concerns that Singaporeans could join the fight in Syria.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) yesterday confirmed that the Singaporean family in The Star report was the same one mentioned by Mr Teo in July. “The said woman was last known to be married to a Malaysian. She was not known to be radical when she lived in Singapore. She left Singapore several years ago,” an MHA spokesperson said in a statement.

Sources told The Star the family had left for Syria together in November, but they later separated, heading off to different parts of the country to take part in the jihadist operations with various militant factions.

“The authorities believe the man joined the (Al Qaeda-linked) Jabhat Al-Nusra group and his stepson the IS (Islamic State). The wife worked as a cook while the daughter taught English to the children of the fighters in Syria,” one source told the newspaper.

Mr Teo had also said that another Singaporean, Mr Haja Fakkurudeen Usman Ali, a naturalised Singaporean citizen, had also taken his wife and three children to Syria. Several others had intended to travel to Syria or other conflict zones to engage in jihadist violence, but were detected before they could proceed with plans.

The Islamic State’s sweep through swathes of Iraq and Syria this year has energised radical Muslim followers in the region to join the hundreds of foreigners who are believed to have travelled to Syria take part in the conflict.