Singapore: Singapore has arrested a teenage boy who was allegedly planning an Daesh-inspired terror attack on a busy suburb, the interior minister said Friday, adding it was a “very close shave.”
After watching Daesh propaganda glorifying knife attacks, the 17-year-old visited the suburb to rehearse his attack before he was arrested in August, Home Minister K. Shanmugam said.
“He was quite serious because he actually practiced stabbing motions with the scissors. He checked out which place would cause death — basically the neck area — so he practiced hitting at the neck,” Shanmugam told reporters.
“I would say this was a very close shave. It is very fortunate that ISD (Internal Security Department) arrested him in time.”
The teenager, detained under the Internal Security Act, had allegedly planned a stabbing spree to coincide with school holidays in September when the area would be teeming with people.
In a statement released on Friday, ISD said the teenager was exposed to the deluge of online extremist materials posted by the Daesh group after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
“He joined various online groups which provided updates on Daesh’s activities and bought into Daesh’s rhetoric of promoting the use of violence to establish an Islamic caliphate,” ISD said.
By January, “the youth had become a staunch Daesh supporter and aspired to die as a martyr while fighting for the group,” it added.
He took a pledge of allegiance to IS and intended to travel to Syria to fight there, according to ISD.
The teenager acted alone as he was unable to radicalize other people, ISD added.
His family noticed him watching videos of radical preachers and advised him to stop, but he continued, using “codewords” when discussing his beliefs online, the department said.
Singapore arrests teen for planning Daesh-inspired stabbing spree
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Singapore arrests teen for planning Daesh-inspired stabbing spree
Ukraine’s Zelensky: We have backed US peace proposals to get a deal done
- “The tactic we chose is for the Americans not to think that we want to continue the war,” Zelensky told The Atlantic
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had sought to back US peace proposals to end the war with Russia as President Donald Trump seeks to resolve the conflict before November mid-term elections.
Zelensky, in an interview published by The Atlantic on Thursday, said Kyiv was willing to hold both a presidential election and a referendum on a deal, but would not settle for an accord that was detrimental to Ukraine’s interests.
“The tactic we chose is for the Americans not to think that we want to continue the war,” Zelensky told the US-based publication. “That’s why we started supporting their proposals in any format that speeds things along.”
He said Ukraine was “not afraid of anything. Are we ready for elections? We’re ready. Are we ready for a referendum? We’re ready.”
Zelensky has sought to build good relations with Washington since an Oval Office meeting in February 2025 descended into a shouting match with Trump and US Vice President JD Vance.
But he said he had rejected a proposal, reported this week by the Financial Times, to announce the votes on February 24, the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion. A ceasefire and proposed US security guarantees against a future invasion had not yet been settled, he said.
“No one is clinging to power,” The Atlantic quoted him as saying. “I am ready for elections. But for that we need security, guarantees of security, a ceasefire.”
And he added: “I don’t think we should put a bad deal up for a referendum.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Zelensky is not a legitimate negotiating partner because he has not faced election since coming to power in 2019.
Zelensky has said in recent weeks that a document on security guarantees for Ukraine is all but ready to be signed.
But, in his remarks, he acknowledged that details remained unresolved, including whether the US would be willing to shoot down incoming missiles over Ukraine if Russia were to violate the peace.
“This hasn’t been fixed yet,” Zelensky said. “We have raised it, and we will continue to raise these questions...We need all of this to be written out.”
