The director of the Institute for Security Studies at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Mike Hough, said on Thursday it was highly unlikely that al-Qaeda would have wanted to disrupt elections in South Africa. National police commissioner Jackie Selebi revealed on Wednesday that police had nabbed suspected al-Qaeda operatives ahead of last month's elections and that these arrests had led to similar arrests in Britain, Syria and Jordan, a Johannesburg daily reported on Thursday. Hough said: "If you think of the government's fierce resistance against a war in Iraq and its sympathy with the Palestinians ... then an al-Qaeda plot against elections in South Africa sounds a bit far-fetched." | That's what I thought as well. |
However, it was likely that some al-Qaeda members were based here. "Al-Qaeda has decentralised tremendously since its headquarters in Afghanistan were attacked. There have been fears from the United States that al-Qaeda cells might re-establish themselves in Africa. In terms of the global threat of terror the Americans did ask South Africa to be on the look-out for al-Qaeda," Hough said. But if the government had real evidence against the suspects it would probably have arrested and tried them in South Africa before extraditing them. "It sounds like there was not enough evidence against them and that is why they were deported immediately." South Africa held peaceful elections on April 14 which returned the ruling African National Congress to power and saw President Thabo Mbeki elected to a second five-year term. |