KUALA LUMPUR: The home-made bomb seized by anti-terrorist police on Tuesday following a nationwide swoop on suspected Islamic State militants was strong enough to completely destroy a vehicle.
The improvised-explosive device (IED), weighing about 1kg, was ready to be used in a terror attack planned for the Klang Valley. The attack, investigators believe, was targeted at the top brass of the police force.
Sources told the New Sunday Times that police found the deadly cocktail of chemicals when they hauled up a 28-year-old suspected IS member in Sungai Buloh near here.
Agents from the federal police Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division (SB-CTD) learnt that the suspect, who is unemployed, had recently “graduated” from bomb-making lessons.
“During the raid, police officers found a completed IED when they arrested the suspected IS militant in Sungai Buloh. The bomb was made of a mixture of chemicals, nails, shards of glass and steel added as shrapnel.
“Police believe the IED was meant to be detonated using electricity,
as initial checks revealed that it
was installed with an electric circuit,” said a source.
Investigators discovered that the circuit would enable its user to trigger the bomb remotely or via a suicide bomber, using a cellular phone, timer or simply by connecting the circuit to a battery.
A source said the man, who is among 14 suspected militants nabbed by SB-CTD during the latest crackdown against IS, had recently taken lessons on how to make bombs from a man who has the expertise to make explosives for fish bombing.
“The bomb he made is so powerful that if it had been detonated in public, it would have been devastating.”
However, the danger of IED attacks by IS on Malaysian soil is far from over with the arrest of the bomb-maker.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said police believe that 12 of the suspected militants nabbed, including the bomb-maker, were from the same cell that police busted at the end of last month.
“One of the suspects whom SB-CTD operatives arrested had admitted that he received an order from Wanndy (Malaysian IS militant in Syria, Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi) to build an IED for a planned attack in the Klang Valley.
“Investigators were told that he also shared his knowledge in building IEDs via the Telegram app with other IS members,” Khalid said in a statement released by Bukit Aman yesterday.
He said Wanndy had promised to give the bomb-maker a pistol through a third party. The weapon was meant for his protection against the authorities.
The latest crackdown against IS militants saw a series of interstate raids carried out by SB-CTD officers between July 14 and Wednesday.
Khalid said the 13 men and a woman, aged between 20 and 49, were arrested in Selangor, Perak, Kedah, Penang and Sabah.
Four of them were unemployed, three self-employed, two worked as cooks at a franchise restaurant in the Klang Valley, two were private sector employees, while three were a mechanic, a welder and a student.
Khalid said one of the suspects, a 49-year-old man held in Kedah, was a senior IS operative who had been actively recruiting new members through secret meet-ups in the state.
“The man is responsible for arranging several Malaysian IS members’ travel to Syria, including Abu Ghani Yaacob, also known as Abu Kedah, who was killed in Syria on April 17.
“Among the suspects is a 43-year-old woman nabbed in Perak who had been actively promoting IS ideologies. She had planned to travel to the southern Philippines to join an IS group with the help of Dr Mahmud Ahmad, who had joined the Abu Sayyaf guerillas there.”
He said the suspects were being detained on suspicion of committing offences under Chapter VI A of the Penal Code, and were being investigated according to procedures under the Security Offences (Special Measure) Act 2012.