Malaysia Arrests 17 in Suspected Terror Plot

Malaysia's police chief said that 17 people, including two who recently returned from Syria, had been arrested on suspicion of plotting terror attacks in the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Authorities in the Muslim-majority country had expressed increasing alarm over the threat of Takfiri militancy in the wake of "ISIL's" attacks in Syria and Iraq.

"Seventeen people were planning terror activities in Kuala Lumpur. Two of them had recently returned from Syria," national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said.

Khalid said the arrests took place Sunday. No other details, such as the suspects' nationalities or specifics on what they had been plotting, were mentioned.

Anti-terrorism officials were not immediately able to be reached for comment.
Moreover, authorities had kept a tight lid on militancy.

But the government had increasingly warned that Malaysian recruits to the "ISIL" cause could return home with the group's radical ideology.

Police said in January they had arrested a total of 120 people with suspected "ISIL" links or sympathies, or who were detained as they sought to travel to Syria or Iraq.

They also said 67 Malaysians were known at the time to have gone abroad to join "ISIL", and that five had died fighting with the group.

Last week, the government introduced new anti-terrorism legislation to counter the potential "ISIL" threat.

The bill, which had come under fire from rights groups, allows authorities to detain terrorism suspects for potentially unlimited periods without trial, according to its critics.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team