I do not know what our counter terrorism experts have planned to deal with the "inevitable" terrorist attack in Singapore, but I like to share my common sense approach to deal with it.
1. We already know of some racialised people who have gone for training in the Middle East. The security agencies have already detained them under the Internal Security Act. Well done. Prevention is better than cure.
They can be released after the security threat has been removed, e.g. if they agree to come under family supervision and agree for their movements to be monitored.
2. When the inevitable happens, allow the civil defence force to do what is necessary to save lives, treat the injured and prevent further harm. Set up an escalation system to give the first responders the full support that they need.
3. Allow the police to round up the suspects and detained them under the Internal Security Act. These are the people who are under surveillance before, but they do not fall under the earlier category of being "radicalised".
Like the first group, they can be released after the security threat has been removed, e.g. if they agree to come under family supervision and agree for their movements to be monitored.
4. Set up a hotline and an online form for the public to make reports of suspects. We only need to gather their name, contact number and a report of the suspected people. There will be hundred of thousand reports of this nature within a few days. Most of these reports will prove to be unfounded. But it is important to gather these reports quickly and promptly, and encourage people to make these reports.
Set up an articifican intelligence (AI) tool to analyse these reports and pick out those that need further investigation. This could be cases where several reports are made of the same persons or the suspects are already on some monitoring lists.
The investigators can file their reports into the database for the AI tool to analyse further.
This is a different approach from the investigation process that is now carried out by the Police (based on my personal experience). We need to improve the process.
