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Singapore Says Terrorist Suspects Targeted U.S. Ships
Friday, January 11, 2002
By Shamim Adam
Bloomberg

Several of the 13 detained, police said, had links to terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person charged by the U.S. in the Sept. 11 terrorist plot.

SINGAPORE -- Source
Singapore said the 15 suspected terrorists it detained last month planned attacks on U.S. Navy ships, buses carrying soldiers and American companies.

On Saturday, the Home Affairs ministry said it arrested 14 Singaporeans and a Malaysian under the island's Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinite detention without trial.

The government said 13 of those it arrested belonged to an organization calling itself Jemaah Islamiyah. Other members of the network may have fled the country, and Singapore is working with neighboring countries to find the suspects. Police released two men and served the others with two-year detention orders.

Eight of the detainees trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, the ministry said in a statement, and were involved with the others in three operations cells -- Fiah Ayub, Fiah Musa and Fiah Ismail. Fiah Ayub, the oldest cell among the three, had two ``well-developed'' plans to attack American targets.

Last week, authorities said they found detailed information on bomb construction, photographs and video footage of target surveillance, al-Qaeda linked material as well as tampered passports and forged immigration stamps when they searched the suspects' homes and offices.

In the first plan, the cell targeted a regular shuttle bus service that carried U.S. military personnel between a wharf and a subway station. The plan was ready to be activated and al-Qaeda leaders had been briefed between August 1999 and April 2000. Al-Qaeda showed interest in the plan, but didn't pursue it.
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Dan