The arrest of six men in Batam suspected of planning to launch a rocket at Marina Bay has raised questions about what kind of rocket would be capable of achieving this aim.
To travel the roughly 25km from Batam to Marina Bay, any rocket would have to be more advanced than the homemade Qassam rockets Palestinian militants have in the past fired into Israel from inside the Gaza Strip.
The Qassam-3 rocket, made by Palestinian militant groups in underground rocket factories, measure about 2m tall and can carry a 15kg warhead. These rockets have a range of just 12km — not far enough to reach Singapore from Batam. The rockets also have no guidance system and are therefore difficult to fire accurately over long distances.
Other short-range rockets capable of reaching Singapore from Indonesia would include the Grad (range 20km) and WS-1E (range 45km).
These missiles, however, are not home-made and are manufactured in Iran and China respectively, meaning they would be more difficult to obtain for a small cell of budding terrorists.
Source: TODAY Online
