SINGAPORE: Singapore used an internal security law against two teenagers separately, one over plans to attack mosques and the other for wanting to fight in Syria alongside Daesh militants, authorities said on Wednesday.
The 17-year-old male was detained and subscribed to far-right extremist ideology, seeing himself as an “East Asian supremacist,” authorities said.
He wanted to shoot mosques and had unsuccessfully tried to buy guns, including from the United States, Malaysia and Thailand, the internal security department said.
The teenager wanted to “maximize casualties” and kill at least 100 Muslims, to outdo the 2019 Christchurch attack in which a gunman killed 51 worshippers in a mosque, it said.
Detained in March under the island’s Internal Security Act, he could be held for up to two years without trial.
He was identified following an investigation into an 18-year-old detained in December over similar far-right extremism, authorities said.
Authorities said they were concerned about youth radicalization in Singapore, and have used the Internal Security Act against 17 youth aged 20 and under since 2015.
That law allows suspects to be held for lengthy periods without trial, or to be given a restriction order limiting travel and Internet access, among other conditions.
Of the 17 detained in the past ten years, nine planned to carry out attacks in multi-racial Singapore, where 74 percent of residents are Chinese, 13.6 percent Malay, 9 percent Indian, and 3.3 percent is classified as other, according to population statistics.
The second detained youth was a 15-year-old female who wanted to marry a Daesh fighter and raise a pro-Daesh family or fight for the extremist group in Syria, said the internal security department.
She was issued with a restriction order in February.
“Self-radicalization can happen very quickly. In the case of the 15-year-old, it only took weeks. It is thus critical that the public be vigilant to signs that someone around us may have become radicalized,” said the internal security department.

Geneva: The World Health Organization is facing a gaping deficit this year and through 2027 following the US decision to withdraw, even after dramatically slashing its budget, a media report indicated Wednesday.
As the United Nations health agency has been bracing for the planned full US withdrawal next January, it has gradually shrunk its two-year budget for 2026-2027 from $5.3 billion to $4.2 billion.
But even after the dramatic scaling back, it remains $1.9 billion short toward that budget, Health Policy Watch reported Wednesday.
That figure, which the publication said had been provided to staff during a town hall meeting on Tuesday, comes on top of the nearly $600 million the agency had already warned was missing toward this year’s budget, it said.
WHO did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the report, which comes as the organization is grappling with the looming departure of its historically biggest donor.
Besides announcing the US pullout from the WHO after returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump decided to freeze virtually all US foreign aid, including vast assistance to health projects worldwide.
The United States gave WHO $1.3 billion during its 2022-2023 budget period, mainly through voluntary contributions for specific earmarked projects rather than fixed membership fees.
But Washington never paid its 2024 dues, and is not expected to respect its membership obligations for 2025, the agency acknowledged.
Altogether, the United States owes $260 million in membership fees alone for 2024-2025, according to a WHO overview.
Only Friday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had informed staff of the $600-million hole in this year’s budget, warning in a message seen by AFP that the agency had “no choice” but to start making cutbacks.
“Dramatic cuts to official development assistance by the United States of America and others are causing massive disruption to countries, NGOs and United Nations agencies, including WHO,” Tedros said in his email.
He said that even before Trump triggered the one-year process of withdrawing from the WHO, the organization was already facing financial constraints.
“Despite our best efforts, we are now at the point where we have no choice but to reduce the scale of our work and workforce,” said Tedros.
“This reduction will begin at headquarters, starting with senior leadership, but will affect all levels and regions,” he told staff.
Last month, Tedros asked Washington to reconsider its sharp cuts to global health funding, warning that the sudden halt threatened millions of lives.
He said disruptions to global HIV programs alone could lead to “more than 10 million additional cases of HIV and three million HIV-related deaths.”