Update (before even finishing this post!): US Embassy in Pretoria evacuated today, not sure whether it was a drill or for real, here.
Did you know that we closed our US Embassy and other US facilities in Pretoria last month for a couple of days because of intelligence reports about Somali Al-Shabaab jihadists plotting revenge? I didn’t know that. Here is the report from South Africa yesterday.
An expert on Islamic militancy has warned that the South African intelligence services are “woefully, inadequately prepared” for the potential threat of terrorism during the World Cup next year.
Hussein Solomon, head of the International Institute of Islamic Studies in Pretoria, said militants had already established cells in South Africa.
He was commenting today on reports that Somali terrorists linked to al-Qaeda have been planning to attack US interests here.
The Weekend Argus reported that the US government had closed its embassy in Pretoria and all other US government facilities for two days last month because intelligence agencies had intercepted a call from Khayelitsha to the al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab extremist group in Somalia, discussing a plot to blow up American interests.
Experts believe the World Cup scheduled for South Africa in 2010 will be the magnet to bring Americans to South Africa and provide an opportunity for Islamic forces to get Americans.
The sources added that the efforts by local intelligence agencies to trace the Cape Town Somalis was disrupted when police commissioner Bheki Cele went on national television to say that the country’s intelligence structures
were on top of the situation. This prompted the Somalis to go further underground.
Solomon said today that he had been trying to warn authorities for some time about the threat of terrorist action during the World Cup.
Easier to get at Americans in South Africa.
“Everyone outside this country seems to know who is threatening South Africa. We must not think we are protected because we are far away. Often these things have nothing to do with South Africa. They are just an opportunity to attack America.”
Other sources said that Somali terrorists devised the strategy to take on the US in South Africa because it was easier than fighting the superpower in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.
Just a reminder that when the “moderate” President of Somalia, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, spoke in the US recently, he warned that the Al Shabaab recruiters who have been in the US for more than a year are still here—presumably still recruiting former refugees. So, heck, they could get Americans on our own soil.
For new readers, inspite of all this, we are still bringing thousands of Somalis to the US each year:
The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.