HONG KONG: Malaysian Mohd Rafi Udin, a former taxi driver, had not been seen since 2014 when he left the country to join Islamic State (IS). That was until he appeared last week in an IS propaganda video, alongside an Indonesian and Filipino. They each beheaded a Middle Eastern-looking prisoner. It was the first time Southeast Asian fighters have been filmed carrying out beheadings.
It was a quantum leap in brutality for Southeast Asian fighters, regarded as coming from a gentler culture than their Arab counterparts.
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