Baseless, says Anwar of claim Hamas members trained in Malaysia
SEREMBAN: Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has rubbished claims by eight US lawmakers that Hamas members trained in Malaysia and that the federal government “welcomed terrorists while targeting Jews”.
“It’s baseless,” he told reporters here today.
The eight US lawmakers, who had earlier called on Washington to review its security and economic ties with Malaysia over Putrajaya’s policy barring Israeli citizens from entering the country, had based their claim on a report by an Israeli counter-terrorism research institute.
US categorises Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Anwar said he had even informed US president Donald Trump of his meeting with a Hamas leader.
“There’s nothing unusual about it (relationship with Hamas),” he said.
In May 2024, Anwar met with Ismail Haniyeh during a working trip to Qatar, where he conveyed his condolences to Ismail over the loss of several of his family members killed in an Israeli airstrike in April.
The government in 2015 denied claims by Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service, that Malaysia was used as a training ground for Palestine students to attack Israeli assets.
Then deputy home minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said such claims were not only “ridiculous” but aimed at creating reasons to oppose Malaysia, a strategy often used against countries that Israel disliked. - FMT 22 July 2026
US nominates career diplomat Joshua Harris as envoy to Malaysia
PETALING JAYA: The US has nominated career diplomat Joshua Harris to serve as its next ambassador to Malaysia.
Harris’s name was submitted in a list of nominations sent to the Senate yesterday for confirmation.
Harris, from Maryland, is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and currently holds the rank of minister-counsellor.
He has served as deputy chief of mission and frequently charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Tripoli, Libya, and the Libya External Office in Tunis, Tunisia.
Harris also served as the policy director to the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), and the director for Iraq at the National Security Council.
Additionally, he served as deputy assistant secretary of state and director of the Office of Maghreb Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.
His other foreign assignments have included stints in Ljubljana, Slovenia; Baghdad, Iraq; Tripoli, Libya; and Zagreb, Croatia.
Harris is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The US envoy position has been vacant since former envoy Edgard D Kagan’s tenure ended in February.
Before Harris, conservative commentator and author Nick Adams was nominated as the US ambassador to succeed Kagan, but was, however, dropped in February.
David Gamble is currently serving as the charge d’affaires at the US enbassy. - FMT 22 July 2026
