The South African government's decision to block global United Nations travel and financial sanctions against the South African cousins, Farhad Ahmed Dockrat, an Islamic cleric and businessman from Pretoria, and Dr Junaid Ismail Dockrat, a Johannesburg dentist, because of their alleged links to Al-Qaeda may prove counter-productive.
The United States asked for the Dockrats to be put on the UN sanctions list, but South Africa, as a member of the UN Security Council's Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee (the so-called 1267 Committee) which manages the sanctions, has used its power to prevent the listing.
Deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad explained last week that South Africa had blocked the sanctions, not because it was soft on terrorism but because it wanted more time to check that the case against the Dockrats was strong so that it did not get bogged down in expensive litigation if the Dockrats challenged the listing, which seems likely.
However South Africa's motivations seem to go beyond that. The SA government has apparently been aware for some time of the possibility that the Dockrats might be listed and therefore should have had time to investigate the charges.
It may even be that SA does not dispute the US assessment of the Dockrats.
Instead, one of its main reasons for blocking the sanctions seems to be to placate SA's Muslim community.
At a conference last week organised by Johannesburg's Brenthurst Foundation to try to assess the threat of international terrorism in Africa, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils indicated that there was indeed a low-level threat in SA.
Though SA was not a primary target for international terrorism by Al-Qaeda or similar groups, the SA government nonetheless remained vigilant, "as no country can claim invulnerability, nor can we rule out an opportunistic act against foreign targets on our soil."
Kasrils described how about 20 individuals with Al-Qaeda links had found a safe haven in Southern Africa and had been deported. He also noted that some of these individuals had been busy with reconnaissance in SA, for what he did not say, though the implication seemed to be that it was for possible attacks.
Kasrils said it was quite easy for these Al-Qaeda-linked people to hide within SA's Muslim community, which was open and trusting.
He was nonetheless at great pains to stress that the community itself was law-abiding, patriotic and co-operative with law-enforcement authorities and that it was important not to demonise it.
In their handling of the Dockrat case and others, Kasrils said the SA authorities had to be extremely sensitive to the feelings of this community.
From other presentations at the conference it seemed that this ultra-sensitivity stemmed partly from the fear of upsetting the co-operation which the Muslim community in the Cape had given the authorities to neutralise the terrorist threat of Pagad.
This all suggested that much of the SA government's motivation for blocking sanctions against the Dockrats was to avoid giving the impression to SA's Muslim community that SA was "simply doing the bidding of Uncle Sam", as one official put it.
Showing due sensitivity to the Muslims is no doubt necessary and wise but the SA government's actions have left a distinct public impression that it thinks the Dockrats have been unfairly targeted.
SA seems to be pursuing a slightly schizophrenic strategy of privately co-operating with the United States in the fight against international terrorism while publicly taking actions which tend to de-legitimise that fight in order to stay on the right side of its constituency.
Unless the government keeps the public properly informed about such threats of international terrorism as do exist, the public, and the Muslim community in particular, may assume, when the government is forced to take action against such terrorists, that it is then merely doing Uncle Sam's dirty work.
That may encourage, instead of discourage, some members of that community to harbour these terrorists.