Four weeks after cancelling a two-day beer festival in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, police has arrested three people, including a teenager, suspected of planning a bomb attack. One of the suspects, a 25-year-old man was said to be linked to a militant islamic cell of Islamic State.
“The suspects had plans to attack the beer festival, houses of worship and entertainment outlets in Kuala Lumpur and surrounding areas,” Inspector-General of Police Mohamad Fuzi Harun told reporters. Police had seized materials used for making three improvised explosive devices with an estimated blast radius of 30 meters.” It would have caused a lot of deaths if set off at the beer festival,” the police officer explained.
The Better Beer Festival was scheduled for October and was expected to draw some 6,000 visitors. With 250 different craft beers from 43 breweries from all over the world, including the USA, Australia, England, Scotland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam, the organizers planned to organize the biggest festival of its kind in Malaysia. However, muslims in Malaysia, which make up over 60 percent of the country's population, objected the event, saying that alcohol and Western-style music were unislamic.
“To avoid any incident beyond our control, the police had to be proactive, by objecting to the organizing of the festival”, the police said at that time and cancelled the event (inside.beer, 18.9.2017).
Already in January Malaysian police arrested 7 people allegedly linked to Islamic State for planning to launch terrorist attacks.
