A 17-year-old self-radicalised male Singaporean has been placed on a two-year detention in September 2024.
The student is a staunch supporter of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and had planned to conduct a terrorist attack in Singapore. He had also planned to travel to Syria to engage in armed violence.
He took concrete steps to prepare himself for the attack and planned to use either a kitchen knife or a pair of scissors as his attack weapon, as he felt that he could wield them effectively and inflict maximum damage on his targets.
To ensure that he could kill or grievously wound his targets, he planned to stab them in the neck, and practised stabbing motions using different grips with the scissors.
In June 2024, he conducted a walkthrough of the route he would take from his house for his attack.
Aspired to become martyr
The youth was determined to be killed by the police or passers-by during his attack, as it would fulfil his aspiration to become a martyr.
The ISD statement said he felt a sense of pride knowing that his planned attack, if successfully executed, would be the first terrorist attack in Singapore in recent decades.
He crafted a declaration of armed jihad against non-Muslims, which he planned to release before his attack, in the hope of inspiring other Muslims to engage in armed violence.
How he became radicalised
The youth became radicalised after he was exposed to the teachings of foreign radical preachers while searching for religious knowledge online.
He started to subscribe to segregationist religious beliefs such as the view that Muslims should not extend festive greetings to non-Muslims.
Following HAMAS’s 7 October 2023 attacks, there was a surge in online extremist materials by ISIS and other terrorist groups capitalising on the conflict to peddle their violent narratives.
The youth’s exposure to the pro-ISIS material online led him down the path of radicalisation.
He joined various online groups which provided updates on ISIS’s activities, and bought into ISIS’s rhetoric of promoting the use of armed violence to establish an Islamic caliphate.
By January 2024, the youth had become a staunch ISIS supporter and aspired to die as a martyr while fighting for the group.
In May 2024, he took a bai’ah (pledge of allegiance) to ISIS. After reciting the bai’ah in his room, he regarded himself as an ISIS member and was willing to carry out any instructions from the group, including mounting attacks.
Armed violence
The youth also harboured the intention to travel to Syria to join ISIS and engage in armed violence.
He reached out to an online foreign contact based in Syria for travel advice and researched on flight routes to Syria.
While he was against National Service (NS) as he did not wish to serve a secular, and therefore, in his view, a kuffar (infidel) government, he would still go through NS if enlisted as he saw it as a potential avenue to equip himself with military and combat skills to aid him in fighting in Syria.
In addition, to prepare himself for Syria, he downloaded materials from an extremist magazine which contained tips on planning an attack or conducting a roadside ambush.
Up till the point of his arrest, the youth continued to see his plan to fight in Syria as an important and meaningful endeavour, as he would be able to fight and die alongside fellow ISIS fighters to facilitate the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria.
His decision to plan an attack in Singapore and fulfil his aspirations to be a martyr was because it would be difficult to travel to Syria without arousing suspicions from his family.
The youth actively shared radical materials promoting armed jihad, including nasheeds (chants) by ISIS, with the followers of his social media accounts. He admitted that he wanted to influence his followers into hating non-Muslims and believing that it was acceptable to kill them. He also frequently shared his segregationist beliefs, such as advising Muslims not to interact with non-Muslims or participate in non-Muslim festivals.
ISD’s investigation to-date found that the youth acted alone and was unsuccessful in radicalising his followers or contacts.
His family and friends were unaware of his plans to conduct an attack in Singapore or engage in armed violence in Syria. However, his parents had noticed that he was watching videos of foreign preachers and advised him against consuming such materials as they may not be suitable for Singapore’s context. He disregarded their advice.
The youth took steps to conceal his radical activities, such as using codewords when discussing his radical beliefs online, and virtual private networks when surfing radical websites.
Other cases
a) A then 16-year-old youth, who was detained in December 2020. He was inspired by far-right extremist ideology and planned to attack Muslims at two mosques in Singapore using a machete;
b) A then 20-year-old youth, who was detained in March 2021. Angered by the Israel-Palestine conflict, he planned to conduct knife attacks against Jews at the Maghain Aboth Synagogue in Singapore;
c) A then 18-year-old youth, who was detained in December 2022. He was an ISIS supporter whose plans include stabbing and killing “disbelievers” by ambushing them in dark alleys; and
d) A then 15-year-old youth who was detained in December 2022. He had considered conducting knife attacks to behead non-Muslims in popular tourist areas in Singapore.
