A TERRORIST ATTACK? NO, BUT SINGAPORE WILL BE READY FOR ONE
The island-state is hosting defence ministers from the region this week. And its message to them is clear
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 simulations of a terrorist attack.
But this is not some war-ravaged country. It is Singapore – one of the safest destinations the world.
The wealthy island-state has a near-perfect record of keeping its shores free from terrorism, but as it prepares to host defence ministers from around South-east Asia this week, it appears to have good reason to have prioritised stopping the spread of militancy in the region.
The financial hub, which was second only to Tokyo in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Safe Cities Index last year, says it has for years been the target of militant plots, some stemming from its Muslim-majority neighbours, and that it’s a matter of “when”, and not “if”, militants will strike.
“Singapore continues to face a serious security threat from homegrown radicalised individuals and foreign terrorists who continue to see Singapore as a prized target,” the state’s Ministry of Home Affairs said.
Singapore authorities say they have been a target of Islamic extremism since the 1990s but efforts to deter terrorism have been markedly increased in recent years with more frequent attacks on western countries and after ISIL militants briefly took over a town in the southern Philippines last year.
Raising further concerns about the threat to the island, a Singaporean soldier has featured in several ISIL promotional videos, most recently in December when he was filmed executing men with other militants.
In its inaugural Terrorism Threat Assessment Report released last year, the home affairs ministry said ISIL had demonstrated that Singapore is “very much on its radar” and that the threat to the country remains “the highest in recent years” – claims that are backed up by security experts.
“Singapore, being known as safe and secure, makes it such a risk target,” said Dan Bould, Asia director of crisis management at professional services company Aon, and a former captain in the British army.
“If there’s an attack in the Philippines, it may get half an hour in a 24-hour news cycle. An attack in Singapore with all the multicultural individuals operating here, will be within the narrative for a few days at least.”
Early last year, Aon lifted Singapore in the terrorism and political violence category of its annual risk map from negligible to low risk.
The reality is that Singapore has so far escaped the attacks in other major cities such as New York, London and Berlin. That is why it is at the bottom of the 2017 Global Terror Index, with no reported terror-related attacks after the New York attacks in 2001.
But 75 per cent of Singaporeans believe that it is only a matter of time before the country is the victim of a terrorist attack, a poll by the local Sunday Times newspaper last year showed.
Singapore authorities do not want their citizens to be complacent. Everyone, including schoolchildren, 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.
The MHA said that as of the end of last year, more than 1.3 million devices were equipped with the SG-Secure app, a large chunk of the population of about 5.6 million.
Simulations of terror attacks – including one just more than a week ago where masked gunmen stormed a children’s activity centre on the resort island of Sentosa – are regular. Last month, Singapore’s military undertook its biggest mobilisation exercise in more
Singapore continues to face a serious security threat from homegrown radicalised individuals and foreign terrorists who see the state as a prized target SINGAPORE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS
than three decades, including an inter-agency response to the simulation of a gunman at its national stadium.
Authorities last year said that there was reliable information that ISIL militants were considering carrying out an attack in Singapore in the first half of 2016, a threat they said was countered.
In August 2016, neighbouring Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, arrested six suspects with links to ISIL who were accused of plotting rocket attacks on Singapore’s landmark Marina Bay Sands hotel.
Malaysia, Singapore’s northern neighbour, which also has a Muslim majority, and Indonesia, say thousands of its citizens sympathise with ISIL and hundreds are believed to have travelled to Syria to join the group. Regional security officials have said many are now returning home after being defeated in the Middle East.
Singapore takes a hard line on suspected radicals and Bilveer Singh, an adjunct senior fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, says it is one of the reasons behind its success so far in maintaining security.
The most controversial measure at its disposal is its colonial-era Internal Security Act, which allows suspects to be held for lengthy periods without trial. The MHA said it currently has 20 people held under the act for “terrorism-related” acts, and since 2002 has detained about 90.
“ISA is a fantastic deterrent, and so far it has worked,” Mr Singh said.
Authorities have also deported scores of foreigners for suspected radicalism in recent years and in October banned two popular Muslim preachers from Zimbabwe and Malaysia from entering Singapore, saying their views bred intolerance and were a risk to its social harmony.