When police officers went to the home of the deceased offender in Kampung Sungai Tiram, some seven km from the police station, they initially reported that he was a member of terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah but later said that investigations had established that he was not.

However, what they did find was a compound which, although not barred, had large gates and a sign telling people to stay out. Local media has reported that there may be as many as 10 dwellings within the compound.

Inside the suspect's home they found material supporting Jemaah Islamiyah and then searched other homes. It was reported that as many as 20 people were detained for questioning after more material was discovered.

The police have now said that they are satisfied that the material in the suspect's home belonged to his father and that the young man concerned was acting alone and without direction from his father or anyone else. So far no motive for the attack has been revealed.

Jemaah Islamiyah is a regional terrorist group that operates in the fluid world of affiliations which include groups in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. There are links to Al Qaeda and reports of ties to Da'Esh/ISIS. The group has been implicated in many rat runs between Indonesia and other countries in the region.

The most worrying aspect to this story is that the compound is just 45 minutes drive from Skudai where notorious terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari, a leading member of
Jemaah Islamiyah lived openly for several months after his escape from jail in Singapore. At the time of his arrest, villagers told journalists that they would often see him walking out in public but they did not know who he was despite one of the most intensive publicity campaigns and manhunts in the region.

Mas Selamat is detained indefinitely under Singapore's National Security Act. His son is, reportedly, was detained in Indonesia in 2013 but there is no readily available current news on his status.

The big question is whether there are terrorist cells hiding in plain sight in Johor and elsewhere in Malaysia.

Malaysian authorities are reluctant to classify anything as terrorism and so car bombs and molotov cocktails at "entertainment outlets" are not reported as terrorism but rarely is any viable alternative motive publicised. So the attack on the police station is presently not classified as terrorism.

The fact is that Malaysia is a very peaceful country with a small minority of people who wish to destabilise the multi-racial unity by any means necessary.

Jemaah Islamiyah is at the heart of the movement to create an Islamic Caliphate taking in the Southern Philippines, Malaysian Borneo, Brunei, Southern Thailand, The Malay Peninsula including Singapore and Indonesia. Across the region, the various aligned groups have access to money, large numbers of people, weapons, explosives and transport. They also have a very well developed rat run network.