Singapore prepares for possible militant attack
SINGAPORE: Armed officers patrol a train station where television screens and giant posters warn of the threat from militants. Nearby, fake gunmen storm a shopping mall in one of many recent terror attack simulations.
But this is not some warravaged country. It is one of the safest, Singapore.
The financial hub, second only to Tokyo in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Safe Cities Index in 2017, says it has been the target of militant plots for years, and that it’s a matter of “when” and not “if” militants will strike.
Singapore authorities say they have been a target of Islamic extremism since the 1990s, but efforts to deter terrorism have stepped up markedly in recent years with more frequent attacks on Western countries and after IS militants briefly took over a town in the Philippines last year.
Raising further concerns, a Singaporean soldier has featured on a number of IS promotional videos, most recently in December where he was filmed executing men alongside other militants.
Singapore authorities certainly do not want their citizens to be complacent. Everyone is encouraged to download a mobile app that alerts them to emergency situations and allows them to send in videos and photos of suspicious events.
Simulations of terror attacks are regular. Last month, Singapore’s military undertook its biggest mobilisation exercise in more than three decades, including an inter-agency response to the simulation of a gunman at its national stadium.