South African security officials on Sunday denied claims in a Sunday newspaper that the country faces a high risk of a terrorist attack during the World Cup it is hosting in less than two weeks.
The Sunday Times report pointed to a briefing to the US Congress counter-terrorism caucus last week by the NEFA Foundation, which investigates terrorist activities, warning that simultaneous and random attacks were being planned.
“I believe there is an 80 percent chance of an attack,” Ronald Sandee, director of the foundation, was quoted by the paper as saying.
Police and intelligence officials dismissed the claims.
“I don’t know where they got their information from. We have all our strategies and plans in place,” Police Senior Superintendent Vish Naidoo said. “We have intelligence briefings every day and there is nothing even suggesting what has been suggested by the Sunday Times.”
The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NATJOINTS), which coordinates all security operations for the World Cup, also disputed the story.
“The security forces can firmly state that there is no known specific terror threat against the 2010 FIFA World Cup. All operational plans are on track, teams already in their base camps are moving around and police deployments are increasing,” it said in a statement.
South African officials have long said the country’s non-aligned status and a lack of any substantial local support for militant groups should insulate it from attacks during the June 11 to July 11 showpiece event.
Both the government and soccer’s governing body FIFA, which is cooperating with foreign security agencies and Interpol, have said no viable threat has been identified.
However, analysts and security experts say such actions cannot be ruled out because of the huge attention that even a small attack would get during the tournament.
The US government this week issued a travel alert for South Africa until the end of next month, saying: “There is a heightened risk that extremist groups will conduct terrorist acts within South Africa in the near future.”
Iraqi authorities recently arrested an alleged al-Qaeda supporter who said he was planning attacks on the Dutch and Danish teams, although experts later dismissed his scheme as posing no serious threat.
However, the Netherlands said it was preparing a “terror threat” warning for the tournament in response to the arrest.
In the newspaper report, Sandee said Pakistani and Somali militants were running training camps in northern Mozambique and that trainees from them might have already crossed into South Africa to form or join cells planning attacks.
“Information confirms that several venues will be targeted, some simultaneously, others at random. Reference is also made to the possibility of a kamikaze-type attack,” he was quoted as saying.
He said that numerous references had been made to World Cup attacks in closed-frequency radio broadcasts and phone intercepts in Mauritania, Algeria, Mali, Pakistan and Yemen.
While South Africa has not been targeted in recent years, several militants involved in attacks around the world are known to have spent time in the country, which experts say has acted as a safe haven and staging post for operations elsewhere.
Critics say widespread corruption among police and officials, including the sale of South African passports, has undermined counter-terrorism efforts.
Sandee said the match between the US and England on June 12 could be a particular target, along with fixtures involving the Danish and Dutch teams, should militants aim to avenge perceived insults against Islam.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier