Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee stated that 'an efficient secret police' was necessary to counter dangers such as insurgencies and violent rebellions.[2] The ISD is empowered to conduct mass surveillance and covert security operations; it has the utmost right to indefinitely detain without trial individuals suspected to be a threat to national security.[3]
Although the agency falls under MHA, it is autonomous within the ministry. It is led by a director, who holds the rank equivalent to a permanent secretary, and reports directly to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). The department is highly secretive; most of its personnel are only known to the country's top government officials.[1]
History
The department was initially established as the Criminal Intelligence Department in 1918 after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1915. In 1933, the CID was renamed as Special Branch.[1]
In 1939, it was restructured into the Malayan Security Service (MSS) which was not yet fully operational by the time of the outbreak of the Second World War. The MSS was disrupted by the Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation of Singapore and Malaya. It was disbanded in 1948 and two secret branches, one in Singapore and the other in Malaysia, were created.[4]
The SingaporeSpecial Branch (SSB) was first established on 23 August 1948 by the British colonial government, after the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) launched an armed uprising to establish a communist state.[5] It was structured under the Singapore Police Force and headed by a Deputy Commissioner.
After Singapore achieved independence, the SSB was renamed as the Internal Security Department and became a separate agency on 17 February 1966, together with its foreign counterpart, the Security and Intelligence Division (SID). Both agencies operated under the former Ministry of Interior and Defence until 11 August 1970, when the ministry was split into the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and MHA with SID and ISD falling under them respectively.[6]
Communist Threat
During the Malayan Emergency between 1948 and 1960, the CPM attempted to overthrow the government to win independence for Malaya from the British Empire and to establish a socialist economy. During the 12-year conflict, the CPM raided British colonial police and military installations. It also attempted to bankrupt the British occupation by raiding economic targets such as mines, plantations, and trains. The Singapore SB worked in cooperation with its British and Malayan counterparts to stop the Communist threat by destroying armed cells and rooting out CPM agents embedded within various civil organisations such as trade unions.
A covert security operation in 1963, known as Operation Coldstore led to the detention of 113 suspected subversives.[7]
1960 CIA Plot
From 1960 to 1961, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted to recruit Yoong Siew Wah, an inspector in SSB, as a mole to provide them with sensitive security intelligence. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew authorised a double agent operation with Wah playing along with the CIA. While meeting CIA officers in a safe house, SSB agents, which had been earlier deployed around the house, moved in to make arrests.[8]
Two polygraphers managed to escape in a car leading to a car chase which ended in their arrest and the seizure of a polygraph machine. A CIA officer working under the cover of an embassy First Secretary was declared persona-non-grata and expelled from Singapore. Lee was personally offered with US$3.3 million to him and his political party, People's Action Party, to cover up the matter but he rejected it and demanded US$33 million in economic aid instead. Dean Rusk, then U.S. Secretary of State, formally acknowledged the affair and apologised in a letter.[9]
In 1965, during a televised interview with foreign correspondents about the British bases in Singapore,[10] Lee revealed the CIA plot. After the broadcast, James D. Bell, U.S. ambassador to Malaysia, and the State Department denied the incident, leading a furious Lee to display the letter from Rusk to correspondents.[11] Lee also threatened to broadcast tape recordings proving the charge.[11] The denials were withdrawn with a closed congressional record suggesting that the State Department and the ambassador were both unaware of the case as new officials had failed to consult the files.[11]
Jemaah Islamiyah operations in Singapore
In the late 1980s, Jemaah Islamiyah created a Singapore branch with Haji Ibrahim bin Haji Maidin as the leader of the Singapore branch.[12] Ibrahim recruited members through religious classes which he conducted at private residences.[12] The Singapore branch had an estimated 60 to 80 members in a 2002 estimate by the ISD.[12]
JI aimed to establish a dawlah islāmiyyah (Islamic state) in Southeast Asia and planned a series of attacks to occur in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks against the United States. Close to 80 targets were identified with plans to bomb a shuttle bus ferrying American military personnel and their families from Sembawang to Yishun MRT station. Other targets included key military installations like the MINDEF Headquarters at Bukit Gombak,[13] U.S. and Israeli Embassies, British and Australian High Commissions, the Singapore American School, and commercial buildings housing US firms.[14]
Primarily, JI scheduled major coordinated attacks against the American and Israeli embassies; the Australian and British high commissions, the Singapore American School, Sembawang Wharf and Changi Naval Base, as well as commercial buildings hosting American multinational companies. The plotters had made arrangements to procure 17 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, 6 tonnes of trinitrotoluene (TNT), 300 pieces of detonators, 2.4km of detonator cord, and six trucks (to be filled with the explosives).[12]
In 2001, Ibrahim was arrested by ISD.[12] ISD was then informed that another Singaporean, Mohammad Aslam Yar Ali Khan, had links to Al-Qaeda. In December, the ISD arrested 15 people under the Internal Security Act for terrorism-related activities.[12] 13 of the arrested people were determined to be JI members and were served with Orders of Detention. The other two non-JI members were released on Restriction Orders.[12] Aslam would later be arrested by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.[12]
In 2002, a review of the cases 13 detainees was done by an independent advisory board.[12] The subsequent report by the board supported the ISD's detention of the JI members. In august, ISD arrested 21 Singaporeans which consisted of 19 JI members and 2 Moro Islamic Liberation Front members.[12] Out of the 21, 18 were detained while the remaining three were released on Restriction Orders.[12]
In 2023, during the ISD's 75th Anniversary Gala Dinner, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, in his speech, pointed out one of ISD's first female Operations officers, "Tiger Lily", who was instrumental in breaking into the Singapore JI network.[15] She had managed to get close to the JI Muslimah, wives of JI members, and subsequently through them to persuade their husbands to reveal their JI involvement and cooperate with ISD investigations.[5]
Joint Counter Terrorism Centre
In 2004, the Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre (JCTC) was setup under the National Security Coordination Secretariat (NSCS) of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to deal with security threats and terrorism. This meant that the SID and the ISD, which previously worked independent of each other, had to share information for the first time.
Legislation
The powers of investigation and arrest of the ISD are regulated by several laws, including:[16]
The following is a list of former directors of the Internal Security Department. The identity of the director is not conspicuously made known to the public, until they relinquish the post.
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and intelligence in British, Commonwealth, Irish, and other police forces. A Special Branch unit acquires and develops intelligence, usually of a political or sensitive nature, and conducts investigations to protect the State from perceived threats of subversion, particularly terrorism and other extremist political activity.
Lee Hsien Loong is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been a senior minister of Singapore since 2024, having previously served as the third prime minister of Singapore from 2004 to 2024. He has served as the secretary-general of the People's Action Party (PAP) since 2004 and has been the member of Parliament (MP) for the Teck Ghee division of Ang Mo Kio GRC since 1991, and previously Teck Ghee SMC from 1984 and 1991.
The Most Honourable Order of the Crown of Johor is an Order of chivalry awarded by the Sultan of Johor. It was first instituted on July 31, 1886.
Lee Hsien Yang is a Singaporean businessman and former brigadier-general. Lee has been a member of Progress Singapore Party (PSP) since 2020.
This is a timeline of Singaporean history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Singapore and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Singapore. See also the list of years in Singapore.
The SAFTI Military Institute is a military institute of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) comprising five schools: Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College, three SAF Advanced Schools, and the Officer Cadet School. Located on an 88 ha campus in Jurong West, it was originally established in 1966 in Pasir Laba Camp as the Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute (SAFTI) before it moved to its current location in 1995 and became known as the SAFTI Military Institute.
Daren Shiau, BBM, PBM, is a Singaporean novelist, poet, conservationist, and lawyer in private practice qualified in Singapore, England and Wales. He is an author of five books.
Internet censorship in Singapore is carried out by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). Internet services provided by the three major Internet service providers (ISPs) are subject to regulation by the MDA, which requires blocking of a symbolic number of websites containing "mass impact objectionable" material, including Playboy, YouPorn and Ashley Madison. The civil service, tertiary institutions and Institute of Technical Education has its own jurisdiction to block websites displaying pornography, information about drugs and online piracy.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry is a ministry of the Government of Singapore responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies related to the development of business, trade and industry in Singapore.
Hillview is located in Upper Bukit Timah, Northwest Singapore. The neighbourhood overlooks Bukit Timah Hill, hence its name.
Tan Chuan-Jin is a Singaporean former politician and brigadier-general. A former member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), Tan served as Speaker of the Parliament between 2017 and 2023, and as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Marine Parade GRC from 2011 to 2023.
The 10th Parliament of Singapore was a meeting of the Parliament of Singapore. The first session commenced on 25 March 2002 and was prorogued on the 1 December 2004. The second session begun from 12 January 2005 and was dissolved on 20 April 2006. The membership was set by the 2001 Singapore General Election on 3 November 2001, and it has been only changed due to Lee Hsien Loong being elected as the Prime Minister in Singapore in 2004.
Senior Minister of Singapore is a position in the Cabinet of Singapore. Holders of this office have previously served as either the prime minister or the deputy prime minister. Among the executive branch officeholders in the order of precedence, the position ranks after the prime minister and the deputy prime minister. Senior Ministers also serve as part of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and work at the Istana.
The First Cabinet of Lee Hsien Loong of the Government of Singapore was sworn into office on 12 Aug 2004.
The Religious Rehabilitation Group is an organization of voluntary Islamic scholars and teachers in Singapore who assist in the religious rehabilitation and counselling of radicalised and self-radicalised individuals.
The Lee family is a political family of Singapore, with members in public service, politics, law, and business.
Ayam buah keluak is a traditional Peranakan dish consisting of chicken (ayam), tamarind gravy and buah keluak nuts. It is normally served with rice. It is also one of the favorite dishes of Singapore's founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Lee Hsien Loong.
The Newspaper and Printing Presses Act 1974 is a statute of the Parliament of Singapore that enables authorities to license the publication and distribution of newspaper and other printed media such as magazines and journals in Singapore. The law is designed to ensure that there is no foreign control of Singaporean newspapers, and limits the circulation of foreign printed media.
Anastasia Tjendri-Liew is the founder and managing director of Bengawan Solo, one of Singapore's bakery franchises.
Fong Swee Suan was a trade unionist, founding member of the People's Action Party (PAP) and a Barisan Sosialis leader.
Mathew Jones, "Creating Malaysia: Singapore Security, the Borneo Territories and the Contours of British Policy, 1961–1963" in Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 28, No. 2, May 2000. pp.85–109
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