SINGAPORE, Sept 10 — A commander of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia who allegedly plotted attacks against Jewish targets in Europe, Canada and the United States tried to enter Singapore on multiple occasions, the city-state’s security agency said Thursday.

Singapore said it would not have allowed Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi to enter the country, but warned the case highlighted how conflicts in the Middle East could raise terrorism risks in South-east Asia.

In an annual terrorism threat assessment report, the Internal Security Department (ISD) said that Al-Saadi, who is in US custody awaiting trial, applied for visas to visit Singapore in 2023 and 2024.

“Baqer had applied for visas to visit Singapore on three separate occasions in 2023 and 2024, but did not eventually travel to Singapore,” the agency said.

The ISD said it believed Al-Saadi had travelled elsewhere in Southeast Asia during that period.

“Had he attempted to enter Singapore, he would have been denied entry,” it added.

“We do not discount the possibility that Baqer’s travel to this region could have been for terrorism purposes, and he could have set his sights on targeting Singapore, including US and Israeli/Jewish interests here.”

The agency said it was working with intelligence partners to investigate his activities.

The ISD cited the case as an example of how overseas conflicts “have heightened the threat of attack against Singapore” and South-east Asia.

Singapore and the region “continue to feel the ripple effects of the geopolitical tensions and instability in the Middle East,” it said.

Activities by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its network of armed proxies “have elevated the threat of terrorism beyond the immediate theatre of conflict in the Middle East,” it added.

US prosecutors identified Al-Saadi in charges filed in May as a senior figure in Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iraqi armed group designated by Washington as a terrorist organisation linked to the IRGC.

According to US authorities, he directed and encouraged attacks on US and Israeli interests, and urged the killing of Americans and Jews in retaliation for the war against Iran.

He was arrested in Turkey before being transferred to the United States, where he remains in custody awaiting trial.

Kataeb Hezbollah has denied that Al-Saadi is a member of the group.

South-east Asia has been a target of militant attacks in the past, including the 2002 nightclub bombings in the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed 202 people. — AFP