AP – A man stormed a police station in Malaysia and killed two police officers yesterday in what’s being investigated as a Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror attack. The man also injured another officer before being shot dead.
Material linked to JI, a shadowy Southeast Asian extremist terror network that is linked to al-Qaeda, was found in the attacker’s home and five members of his family believed to be JI members were arrested for investigation, national police chief Razarudin Husain said.
The attack in southern Johor state appeared to have been planned and though the motive was unclear, it could have been an attempt to take firearms from the station, the police chief said.
Two students also were detained after they turned up at the police station just before the attack, purportedly to lodge a complaint, Razarudin said. He said the timing of their appearance was suspicious and could have been an attempted diversion.
The attacker then arrived on his motorcycle, masked and armed with a machete. Razarudin said he had a padded bag used as a shield. The police chief said the man hacked a police constable to death, and then used the dead officer’s weapon to kill another. He then injured a third officer before being shot dead.
Razarudin said the attacker has no criminal record. He said police have identified another 20 suspected JI members in Johor, and will track them down for investigation. Security will be beefed up in police stations nationwide, he said.
Designated a terror group by the United States, JI is widely blamed for attacks in the Philippines and Indonesia including the 2002 bombings in the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
