ISIS could establish base in South-east Asia: PM Lee

SINGAPORE – While the thought that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) could turn South-east Asia into a province of a worldwide Islamic caliphate is a “pie-in-the-sky idea”, it is not so far-fetched that the group could establish a base somewhere in the region, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday in his keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue.

“The idea that ISIS can turn Southeast Asia into a wilayat, into a province of a worldwide Islamic caliphate controlled by ISIS, that’s a grandiose, pie-in-the-sky idea. But it is not so far-fetched that ISIS could establish a base somewhere in the region…somewhere where the governments’ writs do not run,” said Mr Lee, adding that there are “quite a few such places” in the region.

He pointed out that Southeast Asia is a key recruitment centre for ISIS, with more than 500 Indonesians and dozens of Malaysians joining the terror group so far. Several radical groups in the region have also pledged allegiance to ISIS, and the group has so many Indonesian and Malaysian fighters that they form a unit by themselves, the Katibah Nusantara (Malay Archipelago Combat Unit).

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced that M Arifil Azim Putra Norja’i Arifil, a 19-year-old post-secondary student, has been detained since April under the Internal Security Act. He had hoped to travel to Syria to join ISIS, failing which he planned to carry out attacks in public places here, even going to the extent of trying to recruit others to help him. Separately, another teenager, a 17-year-old who was unnamed, was also arrested under the Act for further investigations into his radicalisation.

Referring to these cases, Mr Lee said: “Even in Singapore, where we have a peaceful, well-integrated Muslim population, some individuals have been led astray. A few have gone to join ISIS and others have been intercepted and detained before they could leave.”

Referring to Arifil, Mr Lee said: “If he was unable to leave Singapore, he intended to assassinate government leaders here, including the President and for good measure, the Prime Minister. And this is why Singapore takes terrorism, and in particular ISIS, very, very seriously. The threat is no longer over there; it is over here.”

Mr Lee said that the Republic is participating in the international coalition against ISIS. It is contributing a KC-135 tanker, which was deployed to the Middle East yesterday.

The problem of jihadi terrorism will be around for a long time, he said. Terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda still exists, albeit in a weakened state, while home-grown terrorists and self-radicalised individuals are found in many societies, he added. Several hundred terrorists jailed in Indonesia are also due to be released in the next two years. “After half a century the jihadist ideology will surely have visibly failed, or at least weakened its hold on the imaginations of troubled souls. But remember that Soviet Communism, which was another historical dead end, took 70 years to collapse, and that was a non-religious ideology,” Mr Lee said.