By P Prem Kumar
KUALA LUMPUR (AA) – Malaysian police have confirmed the involvement of Daesh in a grenade explosion at an entertainment center in capital Kuala Lumpur last week, marking the extremist movement’s first attack in the Southeast Asian country.
Police Insp. Gen. Khalid Abu Bakar told a packed press conference Monday that a teenager and man were detained last Wednesday, a day after the explosion at a restaurant-cum-bar.
Police had originally suspected a gangland motive.
The factory workers, aged 19 and 52, had admitted to taking instruction from Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, a Malaysian-born Daesh leader who is known to recruit locals to join the terror movement in Syria.
“They had received instructions from Muhammad Wanndy to attack entertainment outlets in this country. Their other targets were the country’s senior leaders, the police and judges — because these three groups are those who block their activities,” Bakar said, without divulging names.
Bakar said preliminary investigations found the suspects had various sharp weapons and Daesh flags.
They had also obtained grenades from a “neighboring country”, he added, without divulging which country.
The two men are among 15 male terrorism suspects — including two police officers — authorities arrested from June 28-July 1, following the explosion that left some eight people injured, one of them seriously.
Bakar said police are on the hunt for two more people suspected of involvement in the incident — a Saifuddin Muji, 28, and Jasanizam Rosni, 33, both hailing from the southern-most state of Johor.
“We appeal to the people to immediately inform the police if they come across them. This is the first terror attack in the country and we are undertaking a thorough investigation,” he stressed.
“We are very concerned about it and the prime minister [Najib Razak] himself is very concerned about it and has given me very serious instructions to investigate this whole episode and to get everybody involved as soon as possible.”
Police raised alert levels to their highest in January following a Daesh-linked attack in neighboring Indonesia that left eight people dead.
They also listed seven potential hotspots for Daesh attack in Malaysia.
The force also nabbed a suspected Daesh-linked militant in Kuala Lumpur, saying the arrest occurred just hours before a planned nighttime suicide bombing at an entertainment venue in Kuala Lumpur’s Bukit Bintang tourist area.
After Australia issued an alert last February warning of potential violence in Malaysia, Razak said security at major tourist attractions countrywide had been beefed up by a joint patrolling team comprised of the military and police.
As of the end of last year, some 72 Malaysians — including 14 women — had been identified as having fled the country to join Daesh movements in Iraq and Syria.
