Data collected from interviews with former terrorists, first-hand reports on trips to conflict zones and material from the Internet, newspapers and terrorist literature will be analyzed, The Straits Times said.

''We need to address the ideological persuasion of the extremists and neutralize any appeal it may have to the impressionable and the naive'', said Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng in opening the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research on Friday.

Aged between 20 and 30 and hailing from the United States, Europe, Sudan, Morocco and Asia, the researchers include academics, officers from the military and intelligence agencies and religious scholars.

The centre has ''collected aggressively'', said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the centre, and it already has more than 250 videos recovered from the al-Qaeda registry in Afghanistan. It has also translated into English the Pupji, the constitution of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the al-Qaeda linked network in Southeast Asia.

''The greatest challenge is in the realm of the mind and the heart'', said Wong.

He stressed the need to understand the complexities of the terrorist phenomenon and to work with Moslem leaders and Islamic scholars ''to unravel the many knotted distortions in doctrine which terrorists' ideologist rests on''.

Thirty-seven people have been arrested in Singapore since authorities foiled a plot by the JI to blow up Western targets in 2001.