Malaysian emergency services rushed to the tightly guarded United States embassy in Kuala Lumpur on Monday after a powder that police said could be anthrax was found in a letter.
”The envelope containing an unidentified substance was opened by an embassy employee this morning and the Malaysian police Hazmat [hazardous materials] unit was called in to inspect it,” an embassy spokesperson said.
”At this point all the appropriate actions are being taken. The substance is being tested.”
The spokesperson said staff had not been evacuated and continued to work as usual.
The incident comes just days after an anthrax scare at the US embassy in Sri Lanka last week turned out to be a hoax, with tests on a powdery substance received in the mail proving negative.
Police spokesperson Aman Hussain told reporters at the scene in Kuala Lumpur: ”At the moment this powder, according to Hazmat, may be anthrax.”
It would be sent to a laboratory for tests.
Two men and a woman working at the embassy, all US citizens who had been exposed to the powder, were back to work after being checked by doctors, the embassy spokesperson said.
The letter was believed to have been posted locally and contained a message, Aman said, without disclosing the contents of the message.
Half-a-dozen police cars, a fire-brigade vehicle and an ambulance raced to the embassy in the centre of the capital of this mainly Muslim nation after the alert was raised.
The scare follows a series of threats against foreign missions in Kuala Lumpur, including one in April that warned Japan to pull its troops out of Iraq.
Malaysia’s government strongly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, but has recently offered to help in its reconstruction.
More than 80 alleged Islamic militants have been detained in recent years, many of them suspected members of the regional Jemaah Islamiyah militant group responsible for a series of bombings in neighbouring Indonesia.
There have been no terror attacks on Malaysian soil.
Tight security at embassies in Malaysia was breached in April when a group of enraged refugees burned down the Myanmar consulate, while on March 30 a small explosive device was thrown at the Australian high commission from a speeding car, causing no injuries or damage. — Sapa-AFP