Twelve men arrested in Malaysia this month for alleged terrorist offences had connections to the Nigerian student accused of attempting to blow up a US passenger aircraft on Christmas Day, according to a report from Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian Home Minister, Hishamuddin Hussein, refused to confirm the report in the New Straits Times, a newspaper which follows the lead of the Government.

He insisted however that the detained men, who were arrested eight days ago at a gathering of Muslims in Kuala Lumpur, were “a serious security threat to the country”.

They included at least one Malaysian, four Syrians, one Yemeni, one Jordanian and two Nigerians, and are being held under Malaysia’s Internal Security Act (ISA). Under the Act suspects can be detained indefinitely without charge or trial.

Mr Hishamuddin said that the arrests were part of a broader international terrorist investigation, although he stopped short of confirming the report in the New Straits Times that they were members of a group connected to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who allegedly attempted to detonate explosives on a flight to Detroit.

“We were working with other international anti-terrorism agencies and nabbed the ten suspects who are on the international wanted list,” he said. “If you are talking about international linkages, international terrorism, it cannot stop with just the people we apprehended because we don’t know who else is out there.

“I think this is a very good wake-up call because the playground for the terrorist is no longer one location. In this borderless world that we live in now, the whole world is their playground.”

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