Good Sinagpore Gets It.

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We must show terrorists we won't be cowed

Terrorism's real target is not physical - but psychological, says Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean. We present excerpts from his speech

LET me make a few observations about this threat. First, even though the epicentre of this wave of extremist terrorism is in the Middle East and Gulf region, all of us are affected. No country is immune. South-east Asia has become a battleground in this struggle.

Even the United States, a superpower with unrivalled military might and geographically protected by two vast oceans, could not escape being hit. Australia is also a target. Muslim countries and their own Muslim brothers are not immune. Terror attacks from Casablanca to Riyadh, to Bali and Jakarta, show us the ruthlessness of these terrorists.
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Second, this threat is a resilient one. Despite the arrest of more than 200 JI members in South-east Asia, JI and other regional terrorist groups are still actively operating. This is a threat that cannot be simply wished away. It will not diminish if we pretend that it is not there.

Third, the threat is an inter-connected one. We cannot hope to deal with it on our own. The spiritual leader of the JI members in Singapore, Abu Bakar Bashir, is an Indonesian. JI members received training in terrorist techniques in places like Mindanao and in Afghanistan.

Explosives meant for bombs in Singapore were sourced in the Philippines. In fact, one of the potential bombers arrested in the Philippines, an Indonesian man, had one tonne of explosives meant for us. And the bombers who carried out the reconnaissance in Singapore and who would have carried out the bombings if the plot had not been uncovered and stopped, had their origins in the Middle East.....

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