Posted on 08/05/2004 8:34:17 PM PDT by HAL9000
The security alerts in the US and the UK have also reverberated in South Africa because Pakistani police have raised the possibility that al-Qaida supporters were planning terrorist attacks in Pretoria and Johannesburg.Two South Africans of Asian descent were arrested during the 12-hour gun battle with Pakistani police in the eastern city of Gujrat that led to the capture of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Gujrat's police chief, Raja Munawar Hussainl, alleged yesterday that the two South Africans - Zoubair Ismail, 20, an Islamic student, and Feroze Ganchi, 30, a doctor - were "plotting attacks in their home country".
"Authorities found several maps of South African cities among the items seized in the raid," he claimed.
He told the Associated Press in Pakistan that the two were part of an al-Qaida cell. "They were very well-trained terrorists because of the way they fought during the gun battle and the way they engaged us for 12 hours," he claimed.
From maps and blueprints found with the two men, the Pakistani police say they believe there were several targets for attack in South Africa, including the US embassy, the Sheraton hotel and the government Union Buildings in Pretoria, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the V&A waterfront shopping centre in Cape Town and the Cunard liner the QE2, which stops at Cape Town and Durban.
As well as the two South Africans arrested in Pakistan, two other South Africans have been arrested in the United States and Mexico in recent weeks, allegedly for travelling on false passports.
South African officials have tried to calm public fears, discounting the claims of the Pakistani authorities and assuring the public they are on top of all security threats. A government spokesman, Joel Netshitenzhe, said the reports had little "credible evidence".
South African officials said they were trying to see the two to make sure they were being being held according to the Geneva conventions.
Family members of the two men said they had travelled to Pakistan to go on a hiking trip, and dismissed the reports of them being involved in a terror plot as "ridiculous". Friends said the two were quiet and serious.
South African callers to a popular radio station expressed alarm over the threat, despite the country being an unexpected target because of President Thabo Mbeki's strong opposition to the US-led war in Iraq.
· Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, New York, have been arrested in an FBI "sting" operation and charged with aiding a fictitious plot to buy a shoulder-fired grenade launcher to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat in New York.
why would they attack south africa?
My question, too. It's a dysfunctional state with a leftist, terrorist-supporting government - what's not to love?
Do US ships make stops in South African cities? Maybe Yemen is too hot for an operation.
Why the other countries? I think they are just trying to isolate us, hoping other nations will think we are too hot and will keep their distance.
Why not? They are infidels.
Sound like the Spanish lefties. Think because all they think about is Iraq, so do the jihadis.
There was an election plot in south Africa broken up too some months ago I read here. Local officials still covering their ears saying "La la la"
"why would they attack south africa?"
Why not, they'll kill anyone, they don't care. When they bombed the US Embassies most of the people killed were Africans who worked in the Embassies, not even Americans at all. They killed hundreds of people, people who were probably just secretaries and cooks and things like that. They don't care. Look at their "culture", they kill their own children, they just love violence, evil and death.
Remember their goal is to make the world a muslim world. South Africa is not a muslim foot hold ....yet. It is just like communism.
and they said last week they arrested a arab terrorist looking lady in South Texas trying to get on a plane with a passport from south africa, BINGO
Yah -- 'they were hiking' -- Islamists in Pakistan by the Afghan border. Yah, you betcha.
pong
"why would they attack south africa?"
"Pakistani police say they believe there were several targets for attack in South Africa, including the US embassy, the Sheraton hotel and the government Union Buildings in Pretoria, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the V&A waterfront shopping centre in Cape Town and the Cunard liner the QE2, which stops at Cape Town and Durban."
"Cunard liner the QE2, which stops at Cape Town and Durban."
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