Malaysian authorities detain 7 terror suspects for planning car bomb plot

Malaysian police said Sunday that an Islamic State car bomb plot has been foiled with seven suspects arrested.
The country’s police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement that the seven men — a Malaysian, an Indonesian, a “national of an East Asian country”, and four Yemenis — were detained in multiple raids in Kuala Lumpur and the city’s outskirts between Feb 21 and 26.

Khalid said the Malaysian, a 41-year old factory technician, and the Indonesian, a 28-year-old farmer, both detained on Feb 21, received instructions from Mohamad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi to launch a large-scale attack using a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device” in Malaysia and then join the Islamic State militant group in Syria.

Mohamad Wanndy, a Malaysian, is currently fighting in Islamic State’s ranks in Syria.

The police have fingered Mohamad Wanndy as the mastermind behind a June 28, 2016, grenade attack on a pub on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur that injured eight people. It marked the first successful attack claimed to have been carried out by the militant group on Malaysian soil.

The investigation has revealed that the Indonesian suspect in June last year was deported from Turkey after being detained for trying to sneak into Syria to join Islamic State.

Meanwhile, the 37-year-old East Asian suspect who was detained on Feb 23 is believed to be a member of an East Asian terror group who used Malaysia for transit and sanctuary.

As for the four Yemenis detained on Feb 26, they are believed to be members of a rebel group in Yemen. An initial investigation found they are also involved in a syndicate producing fake travel documents.

During the raid, authorities seized various international passports and cash worth 270,000 ringgit (about 2.1 million baht, US$60,600) in multiple currencies that authorities believe was to be channelled to Yemen to fund their organisation.

Source: /Bangkok Post