Soldiers with heavy armed stand guard in front of a major shopping area in downtown in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Monday, Feb. 22, 2016. Mr. Khalid said members of the group had helped suspected Islamic State…
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“The Royal Malaysian Police managed to arrest 162 individuals in Malaysia suspected of involvement with Daesh (the Islamic State terror group), the Ministry said”.
The suspects had collected funds for terror activities, attempted to assemble chemical ingredients for bombs and arranged to smuggle two foreign militants out of Malaysia into another South-east Asian country which the police did not name.
The arrests followedTuesday’s bombings by Islamic militants in Brussels that killed 31 people and injured 270others.
Khalid said in the interview that the deadly Brussels airport attack made it clear that Malaysian authorities have to take action “on the slightest information” and that they “cannot afford to wait and see” if there could be an actual attack.
The detained persons made up a strikingly diverse group drawing from different backgrounds and included four women, a police official, an airplane technician, a mosque cleric and a student.
Earlier this month, authorities said they thwarted an Islamic State (Isis) plot to kidnap Prime Minister Najib Razak.
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One hundred and seventy-seven suspected militants have been detained in Malaysia in the past three years. Malaysia has raised its security alert level following the January 14 attacks in neighboringIndonesia, and onJanuary 15, police said they had detained a man who was hours away from carrying out a suicideattack in Kuala Lumpur.
