South Africa Nineteen Ninety four Porous borders, corruption in the Department of Home Affairs which allowed the fraudulent issuing of South African identity documents and passports to terror suspects, as well as a highly politicised intelligence services focused more on sectarian political battles within the ruling party all contribute to South Africa being seen as this “open territory”. As early as 1997, Al Qaeda had established a presence in South Africa. The issue of South Africa as an operational base and a transit and conduit for international terrorists to their target country also emerged in the case of a Tunisian Al Qaeda suspect Ihsan Garnaoui in 2004. Garnaoui was an explosives expert who trained in Afghanistan and was ‘promoted’ to being an Al Qaeda trainer. He held several South African passports in different names (including in the names of Abram Shoman and Mallick Shoman) and traveled via South Africa to Europe where he was accused of planning bombings on American and Jewish targets. According to Dutch counter-terrorism expert Ronald Sandee, most of Garnaoui’s preparation for these attacks took place in South Africa where he purchased sophisticated military grade binoculars with an integrated digital camera, diagrams and instructions for the assembly of detonators, as well as setting up networks in Berlin whilst still in South Africa. Bin Laden was correct to characterise South Africa as an “open territory”. Indeed in one way, with the on-going politicisation and dearth of professionalism in the country’s intelligence services, it may be more of an open territory than when Bin Laden wrote about it. The Al Qaeda leader’s designation of South Africa as an open territory should be of concern to South African policy makers. They need to take the terrorist threat seriously and act on it. Whether they will do so given the on-going leadership tussle within the ruling party is the big question. What is clear from past experience is that politicians from the ruling African National Congress have always put personal ambition above national interest. worldnewstomorrow/?p=4506
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 11:09:33 +0000
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