Afterwards, he returned to Malaysia, where he worked as a technician,[7] though sometime in the 1990s he also began to plan terrorist attacks in his homeland. In 1998, Zainuri was working on a bomb; the device exploded prematurely, destroying his home and killing his wife, Rahimah Osman. He managed to cover this up by telling the police that the detonation was the result of a failing gas cylinder.