SINGAPORE, Feb 10 — A Singaporean student radicalised by far-right extremist ideologies and planning to attack Malays and Muslims has been detained under the republic’s Internal Security Act (ISA), authorities said on Monday.

According to Channel News Asia, Nick Lee Xing Qiu, 18, identified as an "East Asian supremacist” and expressed intentions to harm Malays and Muslims in Singapore.

Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) said he was issued a detention order in December 2024 after consuming extremist online content and idolising the Christchurch mosque attacker, Brenton Tarrant.

"His attack aspirations included conducting a Tarrant-style attack on Muslims at a mosque in Singapore using homemade guns, knives and Molotov cocktails,” ISD said.

Lee had searched for the attack’s livestream footage, role-played as Tarrant in video games, and acquired neo-Nazi symbols, ISD said.

Authorities revealed that he hoped to instigate a "race war” in Singapore and planned to use homemade weapons in a mosque attack.

Although he took no concrete steps toward an attack, he actively spread extremist propaganda online to incite violence.

Lee also obtained tattoos of symbols he observed on Tarrant’s attire and manifesto.

His family and schoolmates were unaware of his radicalisation, and investigations found no imminent threat to Singapore.

The ISD said Lee subscribed to conspiracy theories such as the Great Replacement Theory, and that drastic action was needed to safeguard Singapore’s Chinese community from the allegedly rapid growth of Malays.