The United States has warned that terrorists affiliated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network may be planning new attacks o­n US citizens and interests in Malaysia.

The threat is particularly high in the state of Sabah where members of the banned Jemaah Islamiya group, which is linked to al-Qaeda, have been active, the State Department said in a statement.

"JI and other extremist groups present in the region have demonstrated transnational capabilities to carry out attacks against locations where Westerners congregate," it said.

The statement, released just two days after deadly suicide car bombings in Riyadh blamed o­n al-Qaeda, said Washington remained concerned "about the possibility of terrorist attacks against American citizens and American interests in Malaysia, especially in the state of Sabah."

Furious reaction

Malaysia reacted furiously to a similar US advisory issued last November which warned of possible follow up attacks to the nightclub blasts o­n the Indonesian island of Bali, which killed 200 people.

Wednesday's warning also said that the threat of attacks similar to the bombing o­n Bali existed throughout Southeast Asia, pointing to the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf group as another source of danger.

"Although the capacity of some elements of (Abu Sayyaf) has been diminished by the recent military action in the Philippines, the (group) remains a security threat to areas in Sabah, which is close to the southern Philippines," it said.

Several Americans have been killed while held by the Abu Sayyaf in recent years, and the group has also been linked by some US and Philippine officials to al-Qaeda.

The statement noted that Malaysian police and military personnel have been deployed o­n the islands of Sabah as well as Sipadan and Pandanan, which were the sites of two hostage-taking incidents in 2000.

"However," it said, "the region is remote and large in area and assistance in security matters may not be readily available."

The department called o­n US citizens in Malaysia, particularly those planning to visit Sabah to "exercise extreme caution."

Paranoid and baseless

Malaysia was among several Southeast Asian states which bristled at a series of US travel warnings last year, upset that their potrayal as possible sites for terror attacks could damage their economies and vital tourism industries.

A Malaysian official denounced the US warning in November as "paranoid and baseless."

And Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was quoted in the local press as saying that the warning disregarded Malaysia's cooperation in the anti-terror war.

"They should tell us who, where and when so that we can take action to prevent such attacks from happening instead of making such baseless allegations," Mahathir was quoted as saying by The Star .

"But instead of telling us, they went and issued a public warning like that. Are they prepared to take a bet that such an attack will happen here? If it does not happen, the warning will o­nly damage our economy." - AFP