Cape Town -
Synagogues around the country strengthened security measures a few months ago following a terrorist attack threat.
This has emerged after secret documents revealed this week that al-Qaeda operatives had planned to attack a Jewish conference in Cape Town.
And on Friday the South African Jewish Board of Deputies called on Jewish people to watch out for and report any suspicious activities.
A State Security Agency counterterrorism document, leaked to Al Jazeera and published this week on the news network’s website, mentioned the planned terrorist attack against a Jewish conference in Cape Town.
It said two people, whose names were blacked out, met in Dubai and “discussed about getting support for the SA operation”.
The document linked the plan to British citizen Samantha Lewthwaite, dubbed the White Widow, believed to have been involved in terrorist attacks in Kenya.
On Friday Jewish Board of Deputies president Zev Krengel told Weekend Argus South African intelligence members had warned it about terrorist threats - in September last year, and previously in 2010.
“(With regard to September) all we were told was that there was a potential target, they thought maybe the synagogues,” he said.
Security around synagogues had then been increased. In 2010, intelligence agents had warned of another terrorist attack threat targeting Cape Town.
“We were told about a potential target in Cape Town. We think it had to do with the Jewish Board conference that year,” Krengel said.
The conference is held in Cape Town every two years. Krengel said that for about a decade, intelligence operatives had warned it of about three or four terrorist attack threats.
In a message posted on the Jewish Board of Deputies’ Facebook page on Friday, it advised the community “to keep personal and communal safety concerns at the fore-front” of their minds.
Another leaked National Intelligence Agency document showed that the country’s spy intelligence network was alarmed by extremist groups “active in destabilising” the Western Cape, and their possible links to Iranian nationals.
Dated January 2010 and dealing with the Iranian Intelligence Services operations in South Africa, the document shed further light on how Cape Town and the province fit into the landscape of suspected international covert activities.
It said: “Alleged links between identified Iranian nationals and extremist groups active in destabilising the Western Cape is an issue of concern.
The document listed a number of Cape Town businesses and a religious organisation as being suspected fronts for the Iranian Intelligence Service.
It said the Silk Road International Publishers and Distributors, at one stage based in Longmarket Street in the Cape Town CBD, was “part of a global Islamic movement that seeks to implement Islam as an ideology alternative to Western ideology”.
The Middle East and Africa News Agency and another business, Persian World, both with Bellville addresses, were also listed as front companies.
The document said while Persian World was a legitimate business, the suspicious activities of a person, whose name was blacked out, had “attracted intelligence attention”.
This week Sadegh Kiyaei, 63, the founder of Persian World and a director of Silk Road International Publishers and Distributors, as well as a former representative of the Middle East and Africa News Agency, said the information in the document was false.
Kiyaei, originally from Iran but now Cape Town-based, said he often travelled to Iran, but not for anything covert.
“I go to buy carpets and handicrafts in Iran. I was there over Christmas,” he said.
The document also listed an Ottery-based religious organisation, the Ahlul Bayt Foundation of South Africa, as another front.
“The Al-ul Bait also works in union with the MOIS (Iran Ministry of Intelligence and Security) to collect information, do talent-spotting and to radicalise Muslim communities,” it said.
This week the foundation’s resident imam Syed Haider denied this. “The Ahlul Bayt Foundation is a religious organisation and our activities and functions are purely religious,” he said.
Saturday Argus