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SINGAPORE: A radicalized Singaporean Muslim has been arrested under strict laws that allow detention without trial for plotting a wave of deadly stabbings against Jews, authorities said Wednesday.
These cases are rare in multi-ethnic Singapore, where different religious and ethnic groups generally live peacefully side by side, but do occur occasionally.
In the latest case, Amirull Ali, 20, planned to ambush and kill at least three Jewish men as they left a synagogue after prayers, security officials said.
He became radical after researching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict online and planned to travel to Gaza in the Palestinian territories to join the military wing of the Islamic group Hamas, they said.
“Amirull was very serious, he had made detailed preparations, he had a knife ready for his attack,” Internal Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam told local media.
“He decided to target the abdomen area because that’s where the heavy bleeding will cause a quick death.”
But Amirull, who had been doing mandatory national service as an administrative support assistant, put his plans aside because he wasn’t sure if he would achieve martyrdom.
However, the Defense Ministry became suspicious and raised the alarm, leading to his arrest this month.
Amirull was detained under the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial for up to two years.
In December, authorities detained a 16-year-old who planned to attack two mosques in Singapore after being influenced by a massacre of Muslim worshipers in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The city-state of 5.7 million is predominantly ethnic Chinese, but it is also home to a significant ethnic Malay Muslim minority.
Its Jewish population is small, at only around 2,500, according to local media.
