MALAYSIA: Malaysia has arrested 13 suspected members of an Islamic militant group with links to Mr Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman on trial for the September 11th attacks on the United States, Bernama news agency said yesterday.
The suspects, belonging to a wing of a group the authorities call Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM), had connections with Moussaoui when he was in Malaysia between September 4th and 15th and again on October 5th, the state-run news agency quoted the inspector general of police, Mr Norian Mai, as saying.
"They were arrested because they are believed to be carrying out activities which are a threat to national security, including holding secret meetings for the setting up of the Daulah Islamiah (Islamic government)," Mr Norian said, adding that they were detained between December 9th and January 3rd.
Police have said the KMM is in contact with like-minded groups in neighbouring Indonesia and the mostly Roman Catholic Philippines, which want to topple the governments in those two countries as well as Malaysia to establish their own models of an Islamic state.
Police were already holding 25 other members of the KMM, arrested since August, Norian said. Most of them are supporters of the opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia. - (Reuters)