OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday 12.50pm.
THE United States government has classified vigilante groups People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) and Qibla as terrorist organisations.
It linked the militant Pagad and the small revolutionary movement Qibla to 170 bombings and 18 other violent incidents in Western Cape in 1998, Die Burger newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The State Department’s report on global urban terrorism said Pagad appears to share Qibla’s anti-West sentiments and both groups probably have ties with Islamic extremist groups in the Middle East.
The report also said there is good reason to believe that the bombing of the Waterfront’s Planet Hollywood restaurant last year, in which two people were killed last August, was in reaction to US air strikes against the Sudan and Afghanistan.
The US report also said Pagad had a large arsenal of illegal weapons, an “army” of about 50 people and more active members than the 250 aligned to Qibla.
The report, released in Washington on Friday, listed seven countries — Iran, Libya, Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan and Syria — and exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden as terrorist sponsors.
Pagad spokesman Cassiem Parker said on Tuesday the group has no links with Bin Laden and said the report will probably lead to groups with links to Pagad being “demonised.”
Pagad was formed in 1996 from the ranks of Qibla with the expressed aim of ridding the sprawling Cape Flats area of drug-dealing gangsters.
It declared a jihad (holy war) against the gangs and bragged that its friends in the Iran-backed Hizbollah group were ready to help them.
Police have accused Pagad of using gang warfare methods against the gangs themselves.
They claim that 59 people have been killed and some 125 injured in Pagad -linked attacks since January 1997.
They have also blamed the group for some 80 pipe-bomb attacks in the Western Cape in the past year, including attacks on police stations and the homes of suspected drug dealers. — AFP