A new ISIS recruitment video featuring a fighter from Singapore who challenges Prince Harry to fight the militant group circulated on social media, the Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed on Sunday.
The three-and-a-half minute video released by Al Hayat Media Center, ISIS's propaganda wing, shows a fighter clad in desert fatigues loading artillery rounds onto a truck. "Why don't you come here and fight us if you're man enough," the fighter says in the video. "So we can send you and your Apaches to hell fire."
It is believed to be part of a series of videos targeted at recruiting Muslims in Southeast Asia, according to the Straits Times.
The fighter, who identified himself as Abu Uqayl, called on fighters from "East Asia" to "sacrifice all that is precious" and urged East Asian Muslims to join ISIS fighters.
Later on in the video, he addressed Prince Harry specifically: "To Harry, you come to Singapore and tell such stories to gain sympathy for the London terror attacks?"
Prince Harry, who served as an Army chopper pilot in Afghanistan, has long spoken out against terrorism. His last visit to Singapore coincided with an ISIS attack on the London Bridge on June 3, 2017, when he spoke out against terrorism and ISIS.
The Singaporean Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed on Sunday that the man in the video, who identified himself as Abu Uqayl, is actually Megat Shahdan Abdul Samad, 39.
"Our security agencies have been aware for some time now of the presence in Syria of a Singaporean, Megat Shahdan bin Abdul Samad, 39, and have been monitoring his activities," the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a press release. "It is believed that the person in the video calling himself 'Abu Uqayl' is Shahdan."
The Singaporean government has been monitoring Shahdan's activities and said he has been out of the country since 2014, where he was "radicalized" in the Middle East.
"He subsequently made his way to Syria to join ISIS' ranks," the Ministry of Home Affairs said in the press release. According to the release, they believe that Shahdan is still with ISIS in Syria.
"The Government takes a very serious view of anyone who supports, promotes, undertakes or make preparations to undertake armed violence, regardless of how they rationalize such violence, or where the violence takes place," the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a press release.
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