South African security experts have warned that the killing of Osama bin Laden could unleash a wave of terrorist attacks cross the world and particularly in Africa.
The warning comes as the South African Police Service on Friday said it was closely monitoring international developments following the shooting of Bin Laden.
Asked if SA law enforcers were on high alert, SAPS spokeswoman Colonel Tummi Shai said that all of the country’s law agencies were monitoring the current situation.
“We are prepared for any eventuality and have contingency plans in place to deal with any situation.”
Shai’s assurances come as several of the country’s Islamic organisations reacted with anger to the killing.
In a statement, Dr Firoz Osman of the Media Review Network said the US’s arrogance was shown through the killing of Bin Laden who was unarmed and not guarded.
“I believe assassinations and extrajudicial killings are banned under both US and international law, and until all the facts are established about the sinister motives of the murky raid leading to the brutal murder of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan it will have dire consequences,” he said.
“We believe that the launch of this war by racists in league with Israel spawned in the wake of the 9/11 atrocity provided America the means to conduct illegitimate military invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians – men, women and children – have been murdered by the Western coalition.”
African Institute of South Africa’s peace and security research head Dr Sylvester Maphosa, said: “Africa is not immune from terrorism and while al-Qaeda could possibly decline because of Bin Laden’s death there are many other organisations, especially in the Horn of Africa, which were greatly influenced by al-Qaeda, that could rise up and pose a grave threat to peace and security on the continent,” he said.
Institute of Security Studies terrorism researcher, Anneli Botha, said while the US could claim an enormous victory the death of Bin Laden did not mean the end of al-Qaeda.
“The fact that Osama is now a martyr is even worse and one can definitely expect revenge attacks. The big worry is who these attacks will come from, especially if it is a decentralised network whose ideology cannot be clearly defined.
“While South Africa is relatively safe there are very strong possibilities of attacks occurring in the rest of Africa…” - Saturday Star