Recently, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made its repository of declassified documents available to the masses online. The documents can be browsed via the CIA Records Search Tool (CREST).

Our searches on Singapore through CREST yielded interesting takes on communist threat and terrorist plots.

Communist threat

After the Second World War, as Singapore hurtled head-first from the tragedies of the Japanese Occupation (1942 to 1945) back into the arms of the British, a group of people called the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) wanted to break free from colonial rule and establish a communist state.

Guerrilla warfare carried out by the MCP was rampant. From June 1948 to July 1960, the Malayan peninsula was in a state of Emergency because of the MCP's frequent attacks.

The CIA kept an eye on the situation here, as evidenced by this report on MCP activities reported in January 1951.

The CIA reports also noted that the MCP attempted to infiltrate trade unions, such as the Rubber Workers' Union, in order to instigate a strike and halt production.

Predicting terror attacks on Singapore

Apart from threats from the MCP, the CIA also predicted impending terror attacks on Singapore by other terrorists.

According to this report, the CIA predicted an impending terror attack following the Laju terror attack on 31 January 1974. Their analysis was that the next terror attack would be on a national facility (like a ship or airliner) by a splinter cell.

The next terror attack that came close to this prediction (that we know of) was the hijacking of SQ 117 on 26 March 1991 by terrorists claiming to be from the Pakistan Peoples Party, more than 17 years later.

The rest of the Singapore archive and other interesting topics are available for viewing here.

Top photo by from CIA.gov and FOIA ERR.

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