SINGAPORE — Singapore has detained an 18-year-old man, accusing him of supporting the Islamic State group and planning to carry out attacks, security officials said Wednesday.
Muhammad Irfan Danyal bin Mohamad Nor, a Singaporean student, was detained in December under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for detention without trial for up to two years.
He became radicalised after viewing Islamic State group propaganda online, said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in a statement, adding that he wanted to use social media to gather fighters to conduct attacks in Singapore.
Authorities said his plans included recruiting a suicide car bomber to attack a military camp as well as bombing a grave site but he was acting alone, and his activities were unknown to his families.
According to MHA, Irfan planned to film his bai’ah at Coney Island on the weekend of 12-13 November 2022, wearing his National Cadet Corps (NCC) uniform and a self-made ISIS flag and headband, and carrying a toy rifle, to mimic ISIS fighters he had seen in online ISIS propaganda. He also intended to declare Coney Island an ISIS wilayat (province), in the hope that it would be recognised by ISIS as an official ISIS affiliate.
He was arrested by ISD a few days before he would have filmed his bai’ah to ISIS and declared Coney Island an ISIS wilayat.
MHA’s assessment was that he had become an imminent security threat, and he was detained under the ISA.
Such cases are rare in the multicultural and multi-racial city-state.
In 2020, authorities detained a 16-year-old who planned to attack two mosques in Singapore after being influenced by a massacre of Muslim worshippers in New Zealand.
The following year, a 20-year-old Singaporean Muslim was arrested under the same law, with authorities accusing him of planning a deadly stabbing spree against Jews at a synagogue.
