Al-Qaeda in South Africa?

South African and foreign intelligence agencies have been monitoring an alleged Islamist militant training camp at Greenbushes, Port Elizabeth, according to local press reports. One magazine has even published a report on the alleged training camp. The report—including photographs of the supposed training grounds—is the cover story in Molotov Cocktail, a magazine edited by James Sanders, author of a recently published history of South Africa‘s intelligence services. However, Port Elizabeth Muslim leader Samuel Panday on Monday dismissed the report, saying the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) was trying to increase its budget allocation through making claims of a military camp. “There is no such camp—it is all nonsense; rubbish,” said Panday. (Mail & Guardian, March 27)

Authorities have been seeing al-Qaeda connections lately from Xinjiang to Sri Lanka.

See our last post on al-Qaeda.