/ 13 March 2007

SA has eye on terror suspects

South African intelligence agencies are concerned that people involved in international terrorism are spending time in the country, an intelligence official said on Tuesday.

Barry Gilder, coordinator of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (Nicoc), an inter-agency body, told the South African Press Association on Tuesday that agents are watching certain individuals and organisations, including foreign visitors, who might be involved in international terrorism.

”We are concerned that terrorists are spending time here … It is something we are taking very seriously,” Gilder said.

He said an inter-departmental task team from the National Intelligence Agency, the South African Secret Service, the police, defence intelligence and other agencies had been formed at Nicoc to oversee investigations.

”We are putting together all information, and [seeing] whether we can feed these to enforcement agencies,” he said.

Gilder was speaking at a gathering of the directors-general of the justice, crime prevention and security ”cluster” of government departments in Pretoria.

Foreign officials and analysts have warned that South Africa has become a resting area for international terrorists. The country’s banks and other institutions are said to be used for terrorist activities.

”We are an open society with good infrastructure. That is some of the reasons they come here,” Gilder said.

He would not describe the extent of the problem, but said some of the people on the intelligence community’s watch list have contacts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and some have links to al-Qaeda.

He said South Africa is not a staging area for terrorism, but rather a place where those involved come to lay low.

He added that it is also not likely to be the target of terrorists.

”We judge it to be unlikely because of South Africa’s position on issues concerning the Muslim community,” he said.

The directors-general heard that several efforts and new approaches are under way to increase capacity at various levels in the intelligence services.

One is the transfer of experienced officers from the spy agencies to the South African National Academy of Intelligence, and an improvement in the curriculum at the academy, Gilder said. He declined to give further examples for security reasons. — Sapa