S'porean, 17, who tried to procure gun, shoot up mosques & kill '100 Muslims' detained by ISD

A 17-year-old male has been issued an Order of Detention (OD) under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

He had been radicalised by violent far-right extremist and racist ideologies and had taken steps in preparation for attacks against Muslims at mosques in Singapore.

He was an online contact of 18-year-old Nick Lee Xing Qiu, who was detained in 2024 after being self-radicalised from consuming extremist content online, and developing violent ideologies.

The duo had exchanged Islamophobic and far-right extremist materials on social media.

They were self-radicalised separately, had not met in person, and were unaware of each other’s plans to conduct attacks in Singapore.

According to ISD, the 17-year-old's radicalisation began in 2022 after exposure to Islamophobic and far-right extremist materials online. That, and his own pre-existing racist views against Malays, led him to develop "an aversion towards Islam and Malays/Muslims".

Similar to Lee, he identified as an “East Asian Supremacist”, believing that Han Chinese, Korean and Japanese ethnicities were superior to Malays and Indians.

Targeted five mosques

The 17-year-old had also shortlisted five mosques. Masjid Maarof, Masjid Jamek Queenstown, Masjid Darussalam, Masjid An-Nur, and Masjid Hajjah Fatimah as potential targets for his attacks.

While he wanted to conduct attacks against all five mosques to achieve a high “kill count”, he had given greater thought to attacking Masjid Maarof, as he frequented the Jurong West area. To maximise the number of casualties, he planned to conduct his attacks when Muslims were leaving the mosque after Friday prayers.

According to the ISD, while the youth had not shared his attack plans with anyone for fear of being arrested, his parents were aware of his hatred towards Muslims and the excessive amount of time that he was spending online.

His father had shared news reports of previous far-right extremist cases dealt with under the ISA, to encourage his son to change his mindset. However, the youth’s parents did not seek help from the authorities.

Looked up to far-right extremist in Christchurch

Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam, during a doorstop at Masjid Maarof, spoke on the youth's radical beliefs and influences.

"This young man, Nick Lee's contact, he believed that Malays and Muslims had to be killed to prevent or control their population growth, and he really was an East Asian supremacist. So East Asian people higher, got to keep the Muslims and Malays down.

This young man also looked up to Brenton Tarrant as his idol.

Brenton Tarrant, as you would know, was a man who killed lots of Muslims in a mosque in Christchurch. He, in fact, this young man whom we detained, modelled himself after the Christchurch mosque shootings, and identified five mosques as targets.

Of these five, he focused on Masjid Maarof Mosque, where I am today here and speaking with you from the mosque. This boy wanted to kill at least 100 Muslims so that he can kill more Muslims than Tarrant had killed. He also wanted to livestream his attacks."

Commenting on the increasing trend of young people succumbing to extremism, Shanmugam urged friends and families to be alert:

"We have to ask friends, families of people, to alert us. When you see someone consuming material which is radical, going online, talking to you in very radical terms, it is good to tell the Ministry of Home Affairs. We will investigate."

"Really, we are here to help them in many ways," he added.

"It stops them from harming themselves and others. They receive help. We are actually able to rehabilitate them in many cases, and then they can go back to their previous lives."

Image from Learnislam.sg and Warees.sg