Malaysia has arrested two men in two separate raids in December and January on suspicion of planning to carry out acts of violence and promoting ISIS ideology.
One of them, an Indonesian who was arrested last week, had allegedly scoured a busy district of the capital, Kuala Lumpur, in November, seeking Buddhist monks to kill, in retaliation for violence suffered by Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
"The attempt failed, and police managed to confiscate a knife during the raid," Mohamad Fuzi Harun, the inspector-general of police, said in a statement.
He added that the suspect had also allegedly communicated with a senior ISIS leader over WhatsApp, had sought to recruit several other Indonesians and put up an ISIS flag at the building site where he worked.
The other suspect was detained in December on suspicion of planning an attack on entertainment outlets.
The suspect, who had been previously jailed under Malaysia's anti-terror law, had also maintained contact with former members of known terror groups and promoted ISIS ideology on his Facebook account to recruit new members, police said.
Malaysia has arrested hundreds of people over the past few years for suspected links to militant groups and over fears that ISIS is encouraging would-be militants to launch attacks in a country that has never before suffered a major assault.
