Herald News Services
SINGAPORE — Singapore released details Friday of what it said was an elaborate plot by al-Qaida terrorists to blow up U.S. Navy warships, a bus carrying American sailors and Western embassies.
Singapore frequently is used as a port of call for Naval Station Everett and other U.S. warships en route to or from extended duty in the Persian Gulf or elsewhere in the Western Pacific.
There is a Navy logistics unit based on the island and U.S. carriers and other Navy vessels often stop in Singapore to be refueled at a naval facility built especially for them. A facility specially designed to accommodate U.S. aircraft carriers opened last year.
The announcement marked the first time a government has revealed that evidence found in Afghanistan has been used to thwart terrorism.
The government also made public a videotape it said was found in an al-Qaida leader’s house in which a man now in custody described how explosives could be carried on a bicycle without arousing suspicion. Other evidence included Arabic-language handwritten notes, also found in Afghanistan.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington, D.C., that the threat to Americans had been "specific" and that suspects arrested by Singapore over the past month would be interrogated and, if appropriate, charged.
He also praised the Singapore government, saying it had "acted with dispatch."
The disclosures Friday came just days after Singapore announced the December arrests of 15 suspected Islamic militants who the government said were involved in an attack plan in the Southeast Asian city-state.
The arrests and alleged plots have shocked Singapore, a small island of 4 million people.
Thirteen of the suspects remain in custody, and two have been freed, Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs said Friday. It said the 13 will be held for two years under the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial for anyone deemed a national security threat.
The videotape released by the government shows a man now in custody narrating as the camera zooms in on alleged terror targets in Singapore.
"These are the same type of boxes which we intend to use," says the suspect, Hashim bin Abas, as video footage shows boxes resting on top of bicycles — an apparent reference to plans to hide explosives.
"It will not be suspicious to have a motorcycle or bicycle there," says bin Abas in the snowy video shown late Friday on Singapore television.
Those detained are believed to also have been planning attacks on the British High Commission, the Israeli Embassy and the Australian High Commission, the ministry said.
The government said the 13 are members of a clandestine organization called Jamaah Islamiyah, or Islamic Group, and that eight of them had received training in Afghanistan from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network. Bin Laden is the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on Washington and New York.
The Singapore government said the suspects had planned to blow up the shuttle bus ferrying U.S. military personnel between a naval base and a subway station — in addition to U.S. Navy vessels in the waters northeast of Singapore.
The videotape and handwritten notes, which detailed plans to attack Americans in Singapore, were "found in the rubble of an al-Qaida leader’s house in Afghanistan," the ministry said.
Also found "was a list of over 200 U.S. companies in Singapore," it said.
Singapore authorities did not say who found the evidence in the al-Qaida leader’s house. They said they first learned of the discovery on Dec. 14 and received copies on Dec. 28.
One of the suspects — a technician for government-linked Singapore Technologies Aerospace — photographed Singapore’s Paya Lebar Air base and U.S. military aircraft there "as a potential target for terrorist attack," the government said.
About 17,000 Americans live in Singapore. Almost 6,000 multinational companies, many of them American, have regional offices in the affluent city-state, and American companies are among the biggest employers in Singapore.
The 15 were arrested in December after authorities found bomb-making information along with photographs and video footage of the U.S. Embassy and other buildings in the suspects’ homes.
The government said the suspects also had al-Qaida-linked materials, fake passports and forged immigration stamps.
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