The police have arrested a key Islamic terrorist suspect who was trained in Afghanistan and has links with international networks, and has also put out a three-country alert for eight other suspects, police announced today.

Police chief Norian Mai told a news conference the man was a leader of the Malaysian Militant Group (KMM), which has connections to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) organisation accused of plotting attacks on western targets in Singapore.

JI in turn is believed to be linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group, blamed for the Sept 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

The 42-year-old former university lecturer, Wan Min Wan Mat, was arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) early this morning in northeastern Kelantan state, Norian said, describing him as a "prime suspect".

"According to our investigation, he is the leader of KMM in Johor (state in southern Malaysia) and has received military training in southern Philippines in 1996 and in Afghanistan in 2000."

RM50,000 reward

Norian said the eight other suspects were believed to have fled to either Indonesia or Thailand, and Malaysia has sought help from police there and in Singapore to track them down.

He announced a RM50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of any of the eight.

The men, aged between 33 and 45, include two lecturers, two staff at a religious school in Johor, a company director, a businessman, an engineer and a salesman.

Norian urged them to surrender and cooperate with police for the sake of their families as some of their wives were ill and one is suffering from cancer.

"We want to remind them that this operation will continue. We will not stop our investigation, our action until they are caught," he said.

"We have convincing information that they have acted and may act to threaten national security and peace," he said, without giving details.

Whereabouts unknown

The government has already detained 62 suspected Islamic militants under the ISA, which allows indefinite detention without trial, over the past year, accusing them of plotting to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

The detainees have always been described as members of the local KMM, but Norian said today that KMM took its orders from alleged JI leader Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, and Indonesian cleric Abubakar Ba'asyir.

Hambali, an Indonesian, is described as being in charge of the JI in Malaysia and Singapore, and is suspected of having direct links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

"We believe they receive instructions from the same figures as quoted by Singapore, that is Hambali and Abubakar Ba'asyir. These two are the leaders of the movement," Norian said.

Hambali's whereabouts are unknown, but Abu Bakar Bashir lives openly in Indonesia and denies any link to terrorism.

Crucial targets

Singapore last week announced the arrest of 21 suspected terrorists, 19 of them allegedly JI members, including some who had undergone military training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

The government said they were planning to cripple military and other crucial targets as part of a plan to overthrow the Malaysian government and create an Islamic state.

This was to be the first step towards their ultimate goal of creating an Islamic state covering Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the southern Philippines island of Mindanao and Brunei, the government said.

Another 13 JI suspects were arrested in Singapore last December and accused of planning to blow up the US embassy and other Western targets.

A video tape of their likely targets was found in the Afghanistan home of Mohammed Atef, the al-Qaeda military adviser who was reportedly killed when his house was bombed by US forces last November.

Singapore said the latest arrests had "severely disrupted" the Singapore JI network, "however, the threat from regional JI elements remains".