Malaysian police arrest two members of S.E. Asian militant group

Malaysian police arrest two members of S.E. Asian militant group

Associated Press
Kuala Lumpur

Malaysian police have arrested two suspected members of a cell of
Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), the Islamic extremist network suspected of
a string of plots and attacks in Southeast Asia, a government
official said on Sunday.

The two men, both Malaysian religious teachers in their 30s,
were detained early on Saturday in Sandakan, a town in Malaysia's
Sabah state on Borneo island, the official said on condition of
anonymity.

The suspects, whose identities were not revealed, were part of
a cell that arranged accommodation and transport for new JI
recruits traveling through Malaysia on their way to camps in the
southern Philippines for military training, the official said.

Police in Sandakan had last month arrested two other alleged
members of the cell.

All four suspects had been fairly active in the past but had
not carried out work for Jamaah Islamiyah in recent months, the
official said. Their cell leader was believed to have escaped to
Indonesia in late 2001.

"Police hope to get fresh leads from the suspects on the
extent of (JI's) activities in this region," the official said.
JI is the main suspect in the Oct. 12 bombings in Bali,
Indonesia, that killed more than 190 people, mostly foreign
tourists.

Security officials say Jamaah Islamiyah has ties to Osama bin
Laden's al-Qaeda terror network and accuse it of planning attacks
on U.S. and other Western diplomatic missions in Singapore and
Malaysia.

Since mid-2001, authorities in mostly Muslim Malaysia have
arrested more than 70 suspected Islamic militants, including
dozens of alleged JI members. They are being held under strict
security laws allowing indefinite detention without trial.

Regional security officials have said that JI members received
arms and bomb-making training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan
and in camps in the southern Philippines run by the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front, a rebel group.

Malaysia's Sabah state has close geographic and historical
ties to the southern Philippines, a mostly Muslim region in the
predominantly Catholic Philippines where the government has been
battling insurgencies for years.

Sabah is a short boat ride from the southern Philippines.
Jamaah Islamiyah wants to establish a pan-Islamic state in
Southeast Asia covering Malaysia, the southern Philippines and
Indonesia.