Police Arrest Malaysian Woman Who Married ISIS Fighter Over Skype

Malaysian police arrested a 27-year-old woman in Kuala Lumpur, who married a fighter from the Islamic State group over Skype two weeks ago, a report said Saturday, adding that the woman was planning to join the ISIS fighter -- claimed to be from Morocco -- in Syria.

“We believe that she was first attracted to IS after watching its propaganda video on YouTube in November,” Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar was quoted by The Straits Times as saying. “She then got to know the North African fighter and eventually married him. He managed to persuade her to join him in Syria.”

In a statement on Friday, Khalid said that the woman was detained at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on Dec. 24. According to him, the woman was planning to fly to Turkey, before travelling to Syria.

On Dec. 28, the police also arrested a 22-year-old man at the KLIA for suspected links to ISIS.

“He was influenced by videos of ISIS fighters and he interacted with Malaysian fighters in Syria,” Inquirer quoted Khalid as saying. “We will check further on the extent of his involvement.”

ISIS, a radical Sunni group, has seized control of vast areas of Syria and Iraq, and declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate on the territories it had captured.

The extremist group, which is known for its brutal executions of hostages, has killed nearly 2,000 people since it started its campaign in June, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group in Britain.

Of those executed by ISIS, nearly 930 were from the Sunni Shaitat tribe that rose up against the group while 1,175 were civilians, including children and women.