A Singaporean man has been arrested and detained for openly supporting the Islam State militant group and carrying out terrorism-related activities, said Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday.
According to reports, the man identified as Zulfikar Mohamad Shariff (44) has not only been supporting IS and its activities but also contributed to the radicalization of other Singaporeans lately. He has been detained under the Internal Security Act.
MHA said that Zulfikar became radicalised in June 2001 after reading Jihadi related materials. Since then he has been supporting Terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Jemaah Islamiyah. He even advocated Muslims taking up arms in Afghanistan after the September11, 2001 terror attacks in the US.
Prior to his detention, Zulfikar was active on Facebook and made several controversial posts glorifying and promoting ISIS.
"He considered his propagation of radical material as a form of jihad, by way of creating awareness of ISIS and promoting armed jihad," MHA said.
In one instance he posted a photograph with his children mimicking a pose commonly adopted by jihadi fighters while standing in front of a black flag that is commonly used by jihadi terrorist groups.
In another post, Zulfikar called for Muslims to take up arms and wage a war. He even proposed a support system for the families of the fighters to motivate Muslims.
Zulfikar always defended ISIS' violent actions. In his post from August 2014, the radicalist argued that ISIS' threat to banish or kill Christians in Iraq was permissible. In the same month, he posted another shocking status defending ISIS' beheadings.
According to MHA, Zulfikar has admitted that he wanted his online followers to reject the western democratic system and build an Islamic caliphate, governed by Syariah law, in its place.
"Not only this Zulfikar had actively looked into organising training programmes aimed at radicalising young Singaporeans," said MHA.
In the wake of constant terror threats that Singapore faces, MHA expressed deep concerns about Zulfikar's promotion of violence and assures to take up strict measures.
