Singapore Sleepers

Eve

n by the dull standards of home videos, the tape is notably unexciting: a shaky, amateurish pan along a typically busy Singapore street, with views of a subway station and passing commuters. A bland voice provides a running commentary in well-educated English, a litany of street names and building numbers. But then comes a chilling remark: as the camera zooms in on a parking area, the narrator advises his viewers to "notice some of the boxes placed on the motorcycles, these are the same type of boxes that we intend to use"—to plant a bomb. The narrator describes where U.S. military personnel line up to board a bus after getting out of a subway station. Those two lines reveal the purpose of the video: it was filmed by an al-Qaeda-trained group allegedly to plan a terrorist attack in downtown Singapore.

The tape's narrator, according to authorities, is Hashim bin Abas, a 40-year-old Singaporean electrical repairman now under arrest. The video, along with notes and maps, was discovered by U.S. forces in the rubble of an al-Qaeda leader's house in Afghanistan in mid-December. Singapore police are now holding 13 men they say were part of a regional terrorist group trained and coordinated by al-Qaeda. The police claim the group was plotting to attack U.S. targets in Singapore, and two al-Qaeda operatives flew into Singapore in October to give advice on how to make and deploy bombs.

The news came as a jolt to all of Asia: proof positive that terrorists not only had their eye on the region, but that they have accelerated their plans after Sept. 11. Even more stunning was the news that a sleeper cell was activated in Singapore, one of the most tightly controlled countries in the region. True, Singapore is resolutely pro-U.S. and offers plenty of American targets. It has a predominantly Muslim Malay minority, yet its members are anything but radical.

The details released by local police are sketchy: they won't say when the bombings were to take place. But they do expose an alleged terrorist network that has been in existence in Singapore for at least five years. All 13 of the arrested men are Singaporean citizens. Eight of them, according to police, received military training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. One allegedly left Singapore for training as far back as 1991.

Since 1997, the group has been conducting detailed surveillance of possible targets in Singapore, mostly U.S.-related, according to the police. The principal target appears to have been a shuttle bus that conveys visiting U.S. naval personnel between Sembawang Wharf and the Yishun subway station. A second plan was to allegedly bomb U.S. naval vessels in Singapore waters. Other members of the group had apparently wanted to attack U.S. airplanes at a Singapore air base.

After Sept. 11, police say, all those plans were put into high gear. Two foreigners—one an Arab al-Qaeda member and the other an alleged bomb expert from the Philippine Moro Islamic Liberation Front—arrived in Singapore in September or October to direct the preparations. The two men, known as Sammy and Mike, told their local contacts they needed 21 tons of ammonium nitrate and warehouse space for the construction of several truck bombs. One of the arrested Singaporeans allegedly attempted to buy 17 tons of ammonium nitrate. (The group supposedly already had four tons stored away across the border in Malaysia.) But local police had already gotten the video and other materials from Afghanistan, and he was detained before he could complete the purchase. Sammy and Mike are still at large, police say, as are an undisclosed number of other cell members.

Eight of the 13 accused are from the Malay minority; six of the eight had served in the armed forces. (National service is compulsory for male citizens.) That has turned a spotlight on a touchy topic: Where do the loyalties of the Malay minority, which forms about 14% of the population, ultimately lie? The Malay community has made progress in recent years, in universities and in the job market. But it is still poorer than the other two major ethnic groups, Chinese and Indians, and tops the list of the government's carefully compiled stats on divorce rates and drug addiction. The gap in society might be larger than people realize—and could yawn even wider if the Malay community as a whole is blamed for its extremists. "This will be a test of the strength of the fabric of our society," is the stark assessment of Singapore's National Development Minister, Mah Bow Tan. The 13 men might have been nabbed before they could set off any bombs—but they have thrown a big scare into their small, island nation.