[I think I’ve posted this before. Its clearly doing the rounds. Here is another article with it. Jan]

Experts fear S. Africa’s Muslim community may be a terrorists breeding
ground

By SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN

Knight Ridder Newspapers

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Inside the Muslims Against Global Oppression’s
Information Center, nestled on a quiet block where shy women wear black
Muslim headscarves, Moain Achmad wages war on America’s polices for a
living.

Behind him is a row of T-shirts glorifying U.S. enemy No. 1: “Long Live Bin Laden,” the front of the shirt reads, a reference to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. “To those against whom war is made, permission is given to fight,” it continues. On the back: “Innocent Until Proven Guilty.”

It costs $5. He sells several every week.

Far from the Middle East, South Africa, one of the most liberal countries in the world, has become a focal point of concern in the war on terrorism.
Anger toward Bush administration policies in Iraq is fueling admiration for bin Laden, even among moderate Muslims, in a region the United States
believes is fertile ground for future terrorists, according to terrorism
experts and Muslim leaders.

“Bin Laden is a hero,” says Achmad, who is burly with a big belly and gray
speckled beard. “Saddam overnight has become a hero.”

Last month, U.S. customs agents at an airport in South Texas arrested a
South African woman thought to have al-Qaida links as she tried to fly to
New York. The arrest may have played a role in the U.S. government’s
decision Sunday to raise the threat level and announce specific buildings as potential targets in three U.S. cities.

But that is just the latest incident in what terrorism experts fear is a
growing danger that al-Qaida and its ideologies have inspired South African groups to commit acts of terror at home and abroad.

South African authorities announced in May that they had uncovered an al-Qaida plot to disrupt the nation’s presidential elections. Five suspected
agents were apparently deported after entering on South African passports
that had been obtained fraudulently, an action that led to more arrests in
Jordan and Syria. One of the Jordanian suspects reportedly had used a
marriage of convenience to a South African woman to win South African
residency.

Last week, two South Africans with alleged ties to al-Qaida were arrested in Pakistan. Additionally South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs said that “boxes and boxes” of South African passports had been found in London, apparently sold by South African officials.

Those incidents come, say terrorism experts and Western diplomats, against a growing unity within Cape Town’s 600,000-strong Muslim community against U.S. policies in the Middle East.

Protest marches have erupted at crucial turning points of the war in Iraq
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Muslim radio stations and imams at
Friday prayers in scores of mosques across Western Cape province routinely
denounce U.S. tactics in Iraq, the Arab world and support for Israel.

“One can clearly see there is a movement of resentment here, and that could be used as a mobilizing vehicle in the future,” said Anneli Botha, a
terrorism expert at South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies in Cape
Town. “The next movement will be more in terms of solidarity with fellow
Muslims. It’s a huge danger.”

Achmad’s center is a temple of such resentment. Outside, posters on the
storefront window urge boycotting McDonalds, Coke and other American
products. Inside, religious CDs emblazoned with an Arab fighter raising his machine gun in defiance are pasted on bookshelves, along with wooden models of Kalashnikov rifles.

There a pictorial homage to Palestinian suicide bombers and a display of
cartoons lampooning President Bush. Images of mutilated Iraqi and
Palestinian children grace the walls.

And a few feet away: newspapers clippings of the jets slamming into the
World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I have all the options to go to Palestine, or to fight in Afghanistan,”
said Achmad, who is a member of a local extremist group, People Against
Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD). “It’s easy to go. I could just say I’m going there to study. But I say the struggle is here.”

South Africa shares many of the ingredients that make Africa an ideal haven for global terrorists: a wide economic gap between rich and poor, high unemployment rates, porous borders, official corruption, and rising
disillusionment among Islamists. South Africa also has a well-oiled
financial system, making it attractive for money laundering and terrorist
financing.

Cape Town’s Muslims, many descendants of slaves brought here by Dutch
settlers in the 17th Century as well as from India and Pakistan, also are
angry over government policies and conditions in the 10 years since the
African National Congress party displaced the whites-only government that
had ruled South Africa under apartheid.

Crime and violence spiraled out of control. Drug dealers spread their
tentacles into Muslim communities. The ANC adopted one of the most liberal
constitutions in the world that sanctioned gay rights, legalized abortion
and abolished the death penalty. And gambling, prohibited under the Koran,
Islam’s holy book, is also legal in South Africa.

That led to the formation of PAGAD in 1995, with the support of most
Muslims. Chanting “one merchant, one bullet,” PAGAD members marched to the
homes of drug dealers, threatening to kill them. In 1996, they allegedly
assassinated a top gang leader.

But the movement soon came under the influence of radicals affiliated with
another group, Qibla, a Hezbollah-inspired movement that sees Iran’s late
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a spiritual guru. That naturally meant
opposition to the West.

Soon, PAGAD members allegedly began staging bomb attacks, 189 in all between 1996 and 2000, according to the most recent U.S. State Department report on global terrorism.

Their targets included South African police stations, synagogues, moderate
Muslims, gay nightclubs, and Western tourist spots. In August 1998, the
government accused PAGAD of bombing Cape Town’s Planet Hollywood Restaurant, apparently in retaliation for U.S. cruise missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan.

A year later, the United States placed PAGAD on its list of terrorist
organizations.

Today, dozens of PAGAD leaders are in prison, and its rallies, which once
attracted thousands, reel in a few hundred faithful.

But the United States still considers both PAGAD and Qibla as threats, and
PAGAD officials, while insisting their group is peaceful, acknowledge anger toward the United States.

“We see the media, and we see all this violence being propagated against the Muslims,” said Abidah Roberts, the national secretary of PAGAD. “As a
Muslim, you’ll say (96)`I like what Imam Khomeini is saying, I like what bin
Laden is saying.'”

Even moderates, however, say they are becoming more radicalized by U.S.
policies. The Muslim Judicial Council, which controls most of the mosques in Cape Town, quickly distanced itself from PAGAD and Qibla as violence and mayhem grew.

But the council’s secretary general, Sheikh Achmat Sedick, says he views the war on terrorism as “a war against Islam.” When asked if his organization identifies with the philosophies of bin Laden, he replies:

“Not on the methods, but at least on the defiance against America. I don’t
think any of us is in agreement with American foreign policy.”

In the same breath, Sedick stresses he and other Muslims are not
anti-American – just anti-Bush administration.

“Even in our sermons we used to say (96)`Oh, God, Destroy America'” said Sedick. “Now we say (96)`Destroy Bush.’ We say it from the pulpit. We make the worst of prayers onto them.”

URL: http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyher…/p>