Authorities Play Down Specific Threats
Even though deputy police minister Fikile Mbalula told reporters the authorities were ready for "any eventuality", serious doubts remain over the tame and dismissive State's reaction to specific threats levelled against some stadia, cities, teams and foreign fans.
"The troublesome fact is that the SA government is ignorant of the threat level which international terrorism poses for the World Cup. Even more gravely, the home-grown violence from freely marauding gangs numbering more than 30,000 members, often better armed than police and with stockpiles of police and military uniforms at their disposal, poses the biggest threat to life and property now," a high ranking Interpol official said.
Specific targets of al-Qaeda and their African copy-cat wannabe's, which operate from Mauritania, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Algeria, are the stadia in Rastenburg, Jo'burg, Pretoria and Durban. The officials also expressed privately their dismay over the suspected collusion between the ANC leaders in South Africa and the Zimbabwe regime of strongman Mugabe, allowing for unchecked cross-border trafficking of arms and presumed terrorists across their border. A number of "Zim refugees" in South Africa have been identified as Somali terrorist group members, who have filtered into SA in the past six months and pose currently as 'sleepers'.
Teams most vulnerable are those from England, Denmark and the US. But the greatest danger comes from the vast underground of black activists who plan to rob and kill white tourists in all parts of South Africa, according to a confidential study from a US security firm sent to FIFA.
The study is also highly critical of the unprepared state of government and law enforcement in South Africa. "We found that the 'head-in-the-sand' attitude of officials is just mind-boggling. We advise hundreds of companies worldwide on security and safety for their international workforce, and after scrutiny of the risks in South Africa we would emphatically implore any of our clients to pull out their staff for the time being," the study concludes.
The leaked analysis has come a day after an al-Qaeda militant arrested in Iraq earlier this month admitted talking to friends about attacking the Danish and Dutch national teams participating in the football tournament.
In a media interview arranged by Iraqi security forces, Abdullah Saleh al-Qahtani, a Saudi man arrested on May 3rd in Baghdad, said he had talked about attacking the teams to avenge insults made against the prophet Muhammad by Western media. In 2006, a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the 'prophet', an act that sparked outcry in Muslim countries. In the Netherlands, the leader of an anti-Muslim party Geert Wilders has called the Koran a “fascist book” and wants it banned.
"We deliberated the possibility of taking revenge for the insults of the prophet by attacking Denmark and Holland," al-Qahtani told the AP news agency. "The goal was to attack the Danish and the Dutch teams and their fans. If we were not able to reach the teams, then we’d target the fans” using guns and car bombs."
The South African authorities said - surprise, surprise! - they knew nothing about the potential threat until it was reported in the media on Tuesday. FIFA said it would not comment on any specific potential threats to the World Cup.
On Monday the South African police paraded their World Cup security forces through the streets of Johannesburg, the country’s financial capital, in a bid to show the world they were ready. Worringly, numerous black spectators were seen in far higher combat readiness than those in the parade.
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