Goh: Militant group plans to crash plane into Singapore
Goh: Militant group plans to crash plane into Singapore
Edward Harris, Associated Press, Singapore
A Singaporean member of an Islamic militant group linked to the
al-Qaida terrorist network is suspected of planning to hijack a
plane and crash it into the city-state's international airport,
Singapore's prime minister said Friday.
The suspect belongs to Jemaah Islamiyah, a group implicated in
an alleged plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other Western
targets in Singapore, and is believed to have fled to Thailand in
January, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong told lawmakers in
Parliament.
Goh identified him as Mas Selemat Kastari.
Thirteen other suspected members of Jemaah Islamiyah were
arrested in Singapore in December in connection with the alleged
bomb plot.
Authorities say that the Islamic group is linked to al-Qaeda -
the terrorist network believed to have carried out the Sept. 11
attacks in the United States - and is campaigning for a single
hardcore Islamic state comprising Malaysia, Indonesia and the
southern Philippines.
Goh's comments suggested that the group's reach was still
wider.
"Jemaah Islamiyah may also have Thai connections," he said.
"In January this year, a Singaporean Jemaah Islamiyah fugitive,
Mas Selemat Kastari, and four others were believed to have fled
to Thailand."
Kastari was suspected of planning to hijack an aircraft from
Indonesia, Malaysia or Thailand and crash it into Singapore's
Changi Airport, Goh said. It was unclear if the alleged hijacking
plan was to be carried out simultaneously with the other attacks
that Singaporean authorities accuse Jemaah Islamiyah of plotting
in the city-state.
The Singaporean prime minister did not give names or other
details about the other four fugitives.
He told Parliament that Southeast Asia faces an increasing
homegrown terror threat.
"It is not just al-Qaeda we are concerned with. It is militant
Islam in our region. The al-Qaeda terrorists are primarily
against the Americans. The radical groups in our region have a
different, regional agenda. The two have combined forces."
While Thailand is primarily Buddhist, it has a minority Muslim
population in its southern provinces, along the border with
largely Muslim Malaysia.
In Bangkok, Lt. Gen. Hemaraj Tharithai, chief of Thailand's
Immigration Police, told The Associated Press that he had
received no reports "that Singaporean terrorists crossed the
border to Thailand."
"We usually exchange information with Singapore's police as
well as its embassy in Bangkok, but they did not mention the
issue to us," he said.
Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew recently said that
members of an Indonesian Muslim group connected to the Singapore
bombing plot remain free in Indonesia, the world's most-populous
Muslim nation. Lee's statements sparked a diplomatic row with
Jakarta.