The 19 suspected militants arrested from April-June were formulating plans to bomb pubs, discos and a Malaysian brewery of Danish beer producer Carlsberg, said Ayob Khan Mydin, deputy chief of the Malaysian police counter-terrorism division.
Ayob Khan told AFP the group, all Malaysians, had visions of establishing a hardline Southeast Asian Islamic caliphate spanning Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, and planned to travel to Syria to learn from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
They were only in the early stages of discussing their plans and did not have heavy weapons or bomb-making knowledge, he said.
Seven have already been charged with offences ranging from promoting terrorism to possession of home-made rifles.
More From This Section
They planned "a campaign of violence and armed struggle and to die as martyrs", Ayob Khan said, adding police believe there could still be co-plotters at large in Malaysia.
Some of those arrested were apprehended at airports on the way to Turkey and Syria to seek training and other support from ISIL.
ISIL, also known as Islamic State, espouses an extreme brand of Islam. It is believed to have thousands of Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq, some of them Westerners.
The Malaysian plotters were aged between 20 and 50. Some of the arrests had been previously announced by authorities, but police had not yet detailed the group's suspected plans and ideology.
Some had begun raising money -- including via Facebook -- to travel to Syria, typically under the pretext of "humanitarian work", Ayob Khan said.
"From interrogating them, they talk about ISIL ideology, including the killing of innocent people and also Muslims who are not in their group," he said.