[I work in a building next to the Carlton Centre. The Carlton Centre is to Johannesburg, what the World Trade Centre was to New York. It is the tallest skyscraper in Jhb – 50 stories – and has a big shopping complex beneath it. Jan]

By Graeme Hosken

Key landmarks in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town have been identified as targets of a massive al-Qaeda terror blitz on South Africa.

The Carlton Centre, the JSE Securities Exchange and Ellis Park Stadium in Joburg; parliament and the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town; and the Union Buildings, the US embassy and the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria have all been named by top police sources as possible al-Qaeda targets in the coming weeks.

President Thabo Mbeki is scheduled to be in attendance at Ellis Park Stadium next weekend when the Springboks take on New Zealand in a Tri-Nations match.

Senior police intelligence agents have revealed that Gauteng was to be the first to be hit in the terror campaign.

The information came after South Africans Zoubair Ismail and Dr Feroze Abubakar Ganchi – arrested in Pakistan along with al-Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani last week – allegedly told Pakistani police during interrogation that they were planning to destroy several financial, administrative, sporting and tourism installations in Joburg and Pretoria.

However, the South African police sources also said they had known for a year-and-a-half about their alleged al-Qaeda activities and targets, and had had the pair under constant surveillance.

Ghailani, who is a Tanzanian national, has been on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist list for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which more than 200 people were killed.

Ismail (20), of Laudium, Pretoria, and Ganchi (30), of Fordsburg, Johannesburg, were arrested last week along with 13 alleged al-Qaeda operatives in a house in Gujrat, Pakistan, after a 15-hour standoff that involved several gunfights.

Pakistani authorities recovered several AK-47 assault rifles, handguns, explosives vests, computers, maps, foreign currency and Arabic-language documents during the arrest of the 15 people.

It is believed that the maps included blueprints of several buildings in South Africa and Pakistan. The documents are believed to contain information on security at the buildings, and the routes into and out of the targets.

The two South Africans, who are both devout Muslims, have been subjected to intensive interrogation by Pakistani authorities, who for about two weeks have been trying to learn their exact targets and their reasons for being in Pakistan.

Ismail and Ganchi, who were due to return to South Africa at the end of this month, had entered Pakistan through Lahore two weeks ago on tourist visas – with exact copies of two passports that were seized during an anti-terrorism raid in London earlier this year.

Ismail was in the UK three to four years ago to meet fellow
Muslims in London and Manchester.

The recovery of hundreds of South African passports in London came shortly before Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi announced the arrests and deportation of three alleged al-Qaeda operatives in South Africa in April.

The alleged operatives, who were of Syrian and Jordanian origin, are believed to have been in South Africa for nearly a year when they were arrested.

Selebi said the men had been actively involved in planning to disrupt the elections in April by detonating explosives at several Western-linked targets.

A senior national police agent said that because they had not actually committed a crime, the only way to deal with them was to tell them to go back to their countries.

Information given to The Star last night revealed that both Ismail and Ganchi allegedly had several meetings with the three men shortly before their arrest in April.

Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils’ spokesperson, Lorna Daniels, said: “The government is well appraised of the situation. We are currently involved in an investigation and therefore have no further comment.”

Source: The Star, Johannesburg
URL: http://www.star.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=12…/p>