Inspector General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador said the four suspects, aged between 20 and 46 years old, included two Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, an Indonesian, and a Malaysia.
The four have admitted to being an Islamic State “wolf pack”. They had planned to murder high-profile personalities and launch large-scale attacks at places of worship and entertainment outlets during the first week of Ramadan. The mastermind of the wolf pack was a 34-year-old Malaysian construction worker.
Police seized one pistol with 15 bullets and six improvised explosive devices, which were smuggled in from a neighbouring country.
Hamid Bador said that the group was set up in January, with police arresting its members just in time on May 5-7, right at the beginning of Ramadan when they had planned to carry out their attacks. Ramadan began on May 5 and is observed until June 4.
One of the Rohingya suspects, a 20-year-old waiter, told police he was a supporter of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an insurgent group said to be behind a number of killings and attacks in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Abdul Hamid said. He had planned to attack the Myanmar Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and continue his jihad mission in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
The police were still searching for three more members of the group who had gone into hiding.
To date, the only successful attack in Malaysia by the IS terror group was a grenade attack on a nightclub in June 2016 which injured eight people. The attackers were subsequently arrested and imprisoned.
