Malaysia to investigate Dhaka embassy bomb threat

Malaysian authorities will investigate a suicide bomb threat issued from within the country by a terror group against three foreign missions in Bangladesh, the country's police chief.

Reuters on Friday reported that an unknown terror group, Jameaah Islamiyah al Qaeda, had threatened the US embassy and the Canadian and Australian High Commissions in Dhaka.

The threats were contained in letters faxed from a number in Malaysia.

Dhaka police chief AKM Shahidul Haque said the group, which claimed to have close ties with outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), had asked the three diplomatic missions in Dhaka to close down their operations within a week or face suicide bomb attacks.

"Upon being notified, we will have to investigate this matter, to see whether the (fax) number really is genuine," Malaysia's inspector general of police, Musa Hassan, told Reuters on Saturday.

Asked whether the matter would require any increase in security for foreign embassies, Musa said security arrangements for foreign embassies in Malaysia were adequate.

A Kuala Lumpur-based foreign diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said Malaysian authorities had not stepped up security for foreign embassies or issued any alerts to them.

Malaysia announced on Friday that the suspected leader of a radical Islamist group linked to the 2002 Bali bombings had been arrested in the country 15 months after he escaped from a high security prison in Singapore.

Mas Selamat Kastari was the alleged mastermind of a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into Singapore's Changi Airport.  Singapore authorities have also accused him of planning several truck bomb attacks across the island state.

 

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