CNA – An 18-year-old Singaporean student who is an Islamic State (IS) supporter has been detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) after he considered plans to attack targets in Singapore, including an army camp and a gravesite at a mosque.
Muhammad Irfan Danyal Mohamad Nor was self-radicalised by online propaganda and intended to travel overseas for armed violence.
He acted alone and there is no indication that he was successful in recruiting or radicalising others, said the Internal Security Department (ISD) in a media release yesterday.
Muhammad Irfan, who was detained in December, had been on the authorities’ radar, said Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam.
The post-secondary student started watching YouTube videos in 2020 by foreign extremist preachers.
He also participated in discussions on social media platforms where he was exposed to propaganda by IS.
On August 9 last year – Singapore’s National Day – Muhammad Irfan planted on Coney Island a self-made flag based on that of the Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
He claimed that the act symbolised the start of his own caliphate.
On the same day, he uploaded pictures of the flag on his social media account, encouraging others to join his caliphate. By October, he was convinced of IS’ legitimacy and decided to travel overseas to undertake armed violence.
Before he could go overseas, he bought a knife from a convenience store in August last year. According to ISD, his plan was to stab and kill “disbelievers” in dark alleys and take their personal belongings as war spoils for his terrorist army.
Irfan also had aspirational plans to carry out a mass-casualty attack against Amoy Quee Camp in Ang Mo Kio, where the National Cadet Corps headquarters is located. Another plan he considered was a bomb attack at Keramat Habib Noh, a graveyard at Haji Muhammad Salleh Mosque, which he believed to be unIslamic.
At the time of his arrest, his plans against Amoy Quee camp and Keramat Habib Noh had not progressed beyond the ideation stage, said ISD. With the addition of Muhammad Irfan’s case, nine Singaporean youth – aged 20 and below – have been detained or given restriction orders under the Internal Security Act since 2015.
