THE island-nation has arrested a teenage boy who was allegedly planning an IS-inspired terror attack on a busy suburb, the interior minister said, adding it was a “very close shave”.
After watching IS propaganda glorifying knife attacks, the 17-year-old visited the suburb to rehearse his attack before he was arrested in August, Home Minister K. Shanmugam said.
“He was quite serious because he actually practised stabbing motions with the scissors. He checked out which place would cause death – basically the neck area – so he practised hitting at the neck,” Shanmugam told reporters.“I would say this was a very close shave. It is very fortunate that ISD (Internal Security Department) arrested him in time.”
The teenager, detained under the Internal Security Act, had allegedly planned a stabbing spree to coincide with the school holidays in September when the area would be teeming with people.
In a statement released on Friday, ISD said the teenager was exposed to the deluge of online extremist materials posted by the IS group after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct 7 last year.
“He joined various online groups which provided updates on IS’s activities and bought into IS’s rhetoric of promoting the use of violence to establish an Islamic caliphate,” ISD said.
By January, “the youth had become a staunch IS supporter and aspired to die as a martyr while fighting for the group”, it added.
He took a pledge of allegiance to IS and intended to travel to Syria to fight there, according to ISD.
The teenager acted alone as he was unable to radicalise other people, ISD added.
His family noticed him watching videos of radical preachers and advised him to stop, but he continued, using “codewords” when discussing his beliefs online, the department said. — AFP
