Malaysian police arrest four individuals

KUALA LUMPUR, May 13 (Xinhua): Malaysian police arrested four individuals who were planning to attack places of worship and assassinate high-profile individuals, Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador said on Monday.

The suspects, aged between 20 and 46 years old, included two ethnic Rohingya and one Indonesian and were led by a Malaysian national, Abdul Hamid told a press conference at the police headquarters in Bukit Aman.

"The special branch counter-terrorism division had detected a wolf pack of Islamic State terrorists, who had planned to murder high-profile individuals and attack places of worship and entertainment outlets.

"One pistol with 15 bullets and six improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were seized. The explosive devices were smuggled in from a neighboring country and are powerful enough to kill," he said.

Abdul Hamid added the cell had been set up in January with the police having arrested members of the group on May 5-7, before they planned to carry out their attacks during the first week of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month.

"One of the Rohingya, a 20-year-old working in Malaysia as a waiter, had planned to attack the Myanmar embassy in Malaysia besides carrying out attacks in Rakhine state in Myanmar," he added.

The police chief also revealed that 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.