In the late 1960s, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) adopted the AR-15 as their main service rifle.

[citation needed] Due to difficulties in obtaining the rifles from the United States, the Singaporean government purchased a license to domestically manufacture the M16 rifle, which was then designated the M16S1.

However, the domestic rifle requirements were not sufficient to allow Chartered Industries of Singapore (CIS, now Singapore Technologies Kinetics) to economically maintain operations at its rifle factory.

Due to the requirements of the license agreement, CIS had to request permission from Colt and the US State Department to allow any export sale, which they rarely granted.

[2][3] This was based on a refined version of the Light Automatic Rifle, fitted with an AR-18 trigger group.