The police today said they had arrested another terror suspect linked to the Islamic militant Jemaah Islamiah organisation, bringing to 72 the total detained since November.

Bakkery Mahamud, 45, was picked up late yesterday in central Pahang following the arrests of four suspects earlier in the day, a federal police spokesman told AFP .

Bakkery, an engineer with the road works department, was believed to have undergone guerrilla training in the southern Philippines, he said.

The five suspects, arrested in three different states, were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for threatening national security, the spokesman added.

Jemaah Islamiah (JI) has been named as a suspect in the Bali bombing in neighbouring Indonesia which killed more than 180 people at the weekend, but police chief Norian Mai said the detainees were not believed to be directly connected to the attack.

Outside link

He did say, however, that they had links to groups outside Malaysia and that two of them had undergone military training in Afghanistan when it was used as a base by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network.

Norian has said local operatives took their orders from alleged JI leader Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, and Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.

Hambali, an Indonesian, is described as being JI's operational commander and is allegedly also a senior member of al-Qaeda. His whereabouts are unknown, but Abu Bakar Bashir lives openly in Indonesia and denies any link to terrorism.

Neighbouring Singapore has also arrested alleged JI members - a total of more than 30 since last December - on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks.

The government said JI's ultimate aim was to create an Islamic state covering Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the southern Philippines island of Mindanao and Brunei. AFP