A suspected hoax designed to sow fears of a chemical attack on Malaysia's diplomatic precinct struck at four more embassies today.
The British, US, French and Australian embassies all said they had received the suspicious packages in the mail, but none of the missions were evacuated. The packages were handed over to police and sent for analysis.
They contained a yellow, oily liquid - and in one case a powder - and have been delivered to at least 10 embassies in the past two days, with a message condemning the countries for mistreating Muslims, Kuala Lumpur's police chief said.
"I think it's normal oil, it's nothing dangerous," Mustafa Abdullah said.
He quoted one note as saying: "You have been infected with a biological and chemical weapon. May Allah curse you for what you have done to the Muslim ummah [community]."
The packages were all sent from Malaysian addresses, including the strongly Muslim, northeastern states of Kelantan and Terengganu, he said. He declined to speculate on who was behind them.
Yesterday, the Japanese embassy was the first to notice the package and evacuated its staff while police and hazardous-chemicals experts swept through the building.
Within hours, similar packages were found at the Canadian, German, Singaporean, Philippine and Thai embassies.
Diplomats and police had already been put on alert after suicide bombings killed 22 people on the Indonesian resort island of Bali last Saturday. The security scare coincided with the eve of Ramadan, the holy Muslim fasting month.