“Southeast Asia is a key recruitment center for ISIS,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the Shangri-La Dialogue here in Singapore Friday. He noted that this included more than 500 Indonesians and dozens of Malaysians. “ISIS has so many Indonesian and Malaysia fighters that they form a unit by themselves — the Katibah Nusantara — Malay Archipelago Combat Unit,” he added.

Even in the small and tightly controlled city-state of Singapore, “a few” young men have gone to Syria to join the Islamic State ranks, and even more were intercepted trying to leave, Lee disclosed. He said the Singaporean authorities had recently arrested two students, one 17 and one 19, the latter of whom had planned to assassinate Singaporean government officials if he was unable to reach the Middle East…

The Islamic State has said it intends to establish a province of its “caliphate” in Southeast Asia. Lee said the idea was a “grandiose, pie-in-the sky dream.” But he warned that it’s entirely feasible that the group could take advantage of some ungoverned spaces to establish a foothold from which to expand recruiting and plan attacks in the new host countries.  “That would pose a serious threat to the whole of Southeast Asia,” Lee said.