The authorities have detained three teenagers who were planning to stage separate attacks in Singapore after being self-radicalised.
Two of them were preparing to conduct mass stabbings in their schools before being arrested, said the Internal Security Department (ISD) in a press release on Monday (27 July).
Source: Internal Security Department
The first teenager, a 15-year-old Secondary Four student, was radicalised by online content depicting the suffering of Palestinians after the 7 Oct 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
He also encountered violent extremist content after joining online groups to learn more about Islam.
He developed a hatred of Israelis and supported terrorist or militant groups fighting against Israel, and briefly considered travelling to Gaza to join Hamas.
But he did not eventually prepare to travel as he felt he lacked resources.
He did, however, express his support for Hamas over social media, even posting an online video encouraging Muslims to undertake armed violence for Palestine.
The teenager eventually aimed to establish an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia, similar to that established by ISIS in Syria in 2014.
He also believed that ISIS’s use of violence was the most effective way to do this.
By the middle of last year, he aspired to violently establish a “Malaya Caliphate” by recruiting individuals from nearby Muslim-majority countries Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
To that end, he searched for information on making homemade explosives online and created social media chat groups, indiscriminately adding contacts including friends and family members.
He shared pro-ISIS content in these chat groups, and printed out a flag for this caliphate via an e-commerce retailer with his mother’s help.
Source: Internal Security Department
He told her that the flag was meant to show his support for Palestine.
Finally, the teenager planned attacks in Singapore, believing that they were justified as Singapore is a secular state that labels ISIS as a terrorist organisation.
He researched online how to make a “pressure cooker” bomb similar to that used in the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing.
When he was arrested, he was in the early stages of planning, and had not yet developed a timeline, location or target. However, he had visualised that it would be conducted in an urban setting, with multiple civilian casualties.
He claimed that he did not share his plan with anybody, but his family and friends appeared to have been aware of his extremist views.
None of them reported him to the authorities.
The second teenager was named as 19-year-old Tan Jun Jie, who was converted to Islam.
He began practising the religion in 2022 after being introduced to it via social media.
After being exposed to online extremist teachings of foreign preachers, and subsequently pro-ISIS content from January 2025, Tan believed that armed violence was permissible against disbelievers.
By 2026, he regarded himself as an ISIS member and admitted that he was willing to carry out attacks in Singapore if ordered by ISIS.
He also considered travelling to Gaza, but gave up as he felt that it was not feasible.
Later, he planned to fight alongside ISIS in Somalia, searching for flights from Singapore to Somalia and conducting research on bomb-making techniques.
At the end of 2025, Tan formulated plans to attack two groups of targets in Singapore, with no specific timeline in mind.
The first group was Singapore Armed Forces personnel at the entrance of Sembawang Air Base.
Source: Google Maps
The second group was LGBTQ students at his school, as he perceived their behaviour to be un-Islamic.
He researched knife skills online and intended to buy a knife with a 10-cm blade from a hardware store in a local shopping mall.
Furthermore, he also imagined killing his Muslim acquaintances who disagreed with his religious ideologies.
Fortunately, his acquaintances reported him to the authorities.
Finally, Tan also admitted to conducting cyberattacks against the websites of several local and foreign Muslim organisations, as he viewed them as imparting misguided teachings.
He also recorded an oral declaration justifying his actions.
Source: Internal Security Department
But the websites remained accessible after the attempted attack, so he did not disseminate the recording.
The Singapore Police Force (SPF) is separately investigating Tan for potential offences under the Computer Misuse Act.
The third teenager, a 14-year-old Secondary Two student, was radicalised by Composite Violent Extremism (CoVE) games.
This started at the age of 12, when he encountered First-Person Shooter (FPS) games on Roblox that recreated real-life school shooting incidents.
Source: Internal Security Department
He identified with the mass shooters and imagined his bullies as the in-game non-player characters (NPCs) and victims, with himself as the perpetrator of violent acts.
He also joined online channels linked to the True Crime Community (TCC).
Source: Internal Security Department
When he learnt about a 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida, he admired the perpetrator, ISIS supporter Omar Mateen, as he believed it was justifiable to kill gay people.
He started consuming more ISIS content, and came to support ISIS’ killing of non-Muslims.
He also considered travelling to Syria to join ISIS but did not do so due to a lack of resources.
He shared ISIS-related videos with his friends and schoolmates, but none were radicalised.
He also developed far-right extremist views, including anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi narratives, and supported white supremacy, considering fairer-skinned individuals as superior.
Finally, he planned a mass attack against non-Muslim teachers and schoolmates in school during the June 2026 school holidays.
Identifying specific days when he and his targets would be in school for co-curricular activities, he decided to use a knife and selected a kitchen knife and penknife from his home as potential weapons.
Source: Internal Security Department
He wanted to livestream the attack and wear tactical apparel during the attack, inspired by mass shooters abroad.
He intended to pledge allegiance to ISIS during his attack, then kill himself to die a martyr.
In January 2026, the teenager drafted a 21-page manifesto, titled “A Call to Action”, which detailed his attack plan.
Source: Internal Security Department
This included the weapons he would use and a list of targets.
Source: Internal Security Department
He planned to disseminate the manifesto on social media one day before the attack, ISD said, adding:
The detailed planning and preparation attest to the youth’s determination to follow through with his attack plan.
Fortunately, someone in his school alerted the authorities after noticing his signs of radicalisation.
He admitted that he would have executed his attack had he not been arrested by the ISD.
Speaking to the media on Monday, Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said he was arrested “just in time”, just weeks before the school holidays.
All three teenagers were separately issued Orders of Detention (ODs) under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in April, May and June 2026, respectively.
Only the 19-year-old was named, while the other two cannot be named as they are under 18 years old.
SPF has also issued Disabling Directions (DD) against one online service provider and two Access Blocking Directions (ABD) to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to deal with terrorism-related content accessible in Singapore.
The DD requires the online service provider to take all reasonable steps to disable access by Singapore users to the relevant online videos, while the ABDs require ISPs to block access in Singapore to the relevant offending websites.
Have news you must share? Get in touch with us via email at news@mustsharenews.com.
Featured image adapted from the Internal Security Department.