Malaysian
authorities said on Saturday they had foiled a bomb attack on top police
officers and arrested 14 suspected Islamic State (IS) operatives in a
week-long operation.
The
suspects included a senior IS member who is believed responsible for
recruiting a Malaysian IS militant, Abu Ghani Yaacob, who was killed in
Syria on April 17, Inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar said in a
statement.
“Based on a search,
police managed to seize one completed IED weighing one kilogram, for use
in a planned attack on the top PDRM leadership,” Khalid said in a
statement, using the Malay acronym for the Royal Malaysian Police, and
referring to an improvised explosive device, or bomb.
Malaysia’s security agencies are on guard against IS spreading in the Muslim majority, but multi-ethnic Southeast Asian nation.
A
few months ago, officials estimated nearly 50 Malaysians, most of them
from the Muslim ethnic Malay majority, had joined IS in Syria and Iraq.
Khalid
said police believe the 49-year-old senior IS member detained in the
northern state of Kedah was an active recruiter and was responsible for
arranging for IS members to travel to Syria.
A 43-year-old woman
who was believed to have been planning to sneak into the South
Philippines to join the IS-aligned Abu Sayyaf group was detained in a
separate raid in Perak state.
The
12 others detained in separate operations in various places including
the capital, Kuala Lumpur, are believed to be from the same cell, Khalid
said.
One of the
suspects was believed to have passed on bomb-making instructions at the
behest of a Malaysian IS recruiter based in Syria identified as Muhammad
Wanndy Mohamed Jedi.
The 14 suspects are aged between 20 and 49, and include cooks, a mechanic, a welder and a student.
Police did not identify any of them.
Deputy Prime
Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said this year police had foiled an IS plot
to kidnap Prime Minister Najib Razak and other senior ministers last
year.
While both al Qaeda and IS
have recruited Malaysians, there has been no significant attack by
either group inside the country since the specter of Islamist militancy
loomed in the wake of al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the United States.
Reuters
