Govt rejects SA terror 'scare'
5 August 2004
The South African government has moved to dispel fears of terrorist attacks on the country's tourist sites and other strategic buildings by the al-Qaeda network, describing media reports on potential attacks as "unfounded, baseless and not true".
The statement by the Cabinet followed Wednesday's reports that two South Africans arrested in Pakistan together with a high-profile Al-Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani told the Pakistani police that they were planning terrorist attacks in South Africa.
The Cabinet said there was no need for panic after it was reported that pair had confessed under interrogation that they had been planning attacks on sites in Pretoria and Johannesburg.
Ghailani is a Tanzanian national suspected to be behind the deadly attacks on United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
The two South Africans, Feroz Abu Bakar Ganchi, a medical doctor from Fordsburg in Johannesburg, and Zubair Ismail, an
Islamic student from Laudium in Pretoria, were arrested 11 days ago in Gujrat, Pakistan.
After its meeting in Pretoria - during which it was briefed by SA's national intelligence agencies - the Cabinet expressed anger at the way in which the issue had been reported "without any credible substantiation from security agencies in our country and in Pakistan".
Chief government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said that reports that certain installations in the country had been targeted ought to be viewed as "unofficial statements".
"If there were any such information from the Pakistani security agencies, the first people to know would have been their South African counterparts", Netshitenzhe said, adding that the media reports had led to unwarranted public alarm.
National Intelligence Agency Director-General Vusi Mavimbela said that South Africa's intelligence officials had been in constant liaison with their Pakistani counterparts, who denied having spoken to the
media regarding the captured South Africans.
"Therefore, there is no [official] information that any particular installation in South Africa is targeted by either the Al-Qaeda or any other international terrorist group", Mavimbela said.
He said the arrest of South African nationals in other countries on suspicions of terrorism did not mean South Africa was a terrorist target, adding that there was "no need for panic".
Questioned on reports that the luxury British ocean liner, the QE2, had been targeted earlier this year as it sailed along South Africa's coastline, Netshitenzhe said the government had not received any communication on targets outside the country.
Netshitenzhe added that South Africa's security agencies continuously conducted security threat analyses, deciding on specific measures to deal with such situations.
"Our government has the wherewithal to deal with the challenge of terrorism in our own country and in co-operation with other
governments in Africa and further afield", Netshitenzhe said.
The government, he added, reiterated its principled rejection of any acts of terrorism and its commitment to work with international agencies and other states in eradicating the scourge of terrorism.
Source: BuaNews
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