26 January 2016•Update: 26 January 2016
By P Prem Kumar
KUALA LUMPUR
Malaysian police revealed Tuesday that one of the suspects killed in a recent attack in Jakarta had contacted a Malaysian mobile number before the violence that left seven other people dead.
Mohamad Fuzi Mohd Harun, Malaysian Police's Special Branch director, told reporters that information about the Indonesian attacker’s correspondences had been obtained from a forensic investigation by Indonesian police.
"The [Malaysian] number has been traced and we are now investigating into this new finding," he said in Kuala Lumpur.
Harun added that the probe into the Jan. 14 attack has confirmed that none of the four Daesh-affiliated suspects killed alongside four civilians in the violence were Malaysians.
"We think there had been communication between the bombers and Malaysian Islamic State [Daesh] elements and Malaysians in Syria," he said.
On Jan. 14, a number of explosions and a shootout rocked a shopping center in central Jakarta, an attack later claimed by Daesh.
Both Malaysia and Indonesia – where dozens of people have been arrested for suspected Daesh links – have been on alert against extremist groups.
On Sunday, Malaysia’s inspector general of police announced that seven people had been detained in three days, after a planned suicide bombing in Kuala Lumpur was foiled last week.
Earlier this month, Malaysia's police force said it had arrested 82 people with links to Daesh – 73 of them Malaysians – in the last year alone.
More than 10 Malaysians, including at least 14 women, have been identified as fleeing Malaysia to join Daesh movements in Iraq and Syria using neighboring countries as transit points.
