SA 'terrorists' denounce Bush

2004-08-04 16:19

Iswlamabad - Two South African men arrested along with a senior al-Qaeda terrorist railed against America after they were detained, a senior police official said on Wednesday.

The South African suspects were identified as Feroz Ibrahim and Zubair Ismail, said Raja Munawar Hussain, the chief of police in Gujrat, the eastern Pakistani city where they were arrested on July 25 after a 12-hour gunbattle.

Hussain said authorities found several maps of South African cities among the items seized after the raid, which also netted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian with a $25m reward on his head for the 1998 twin US embassy bombings in East Africa.

"They were all very well trained terrorists because of the way they fought the gunbattle and the way they engaged us for 12 hours. This is something no common man could have done," Hussain told The Associated Press.

A Lahore-based intelligence official said authorities believe the men wanted to target tourist sites in Johannesburg.

The men are believed to have arrived in Pakistan on a flight from the United Arab Emirates just days before their arrest.

The Johannesburg daily The Star quoted unidentified police sources as saying that key landmarks were among the targets, including the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Ellis Park and the US embassy, government buildings and the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria.

Another Johannesburg newspaper, ThisDay, said the British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 was another target that was supposed to be attacked as it arrived in Durban or Cape Town from Mauritius.

SA 'not told anything'

Foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa refused to confirm the reports.

"There has been no independent confirmation of the reports, therefore in our view this remains speculative," he said.

He added that the South African embassy in Islamabad is awaiting permission to visit the prisoners and has no details of the investigation.

"We have not been told anything," he said.

The men - in custody since last month - are not believed to be the same as two high-level al-Qaeda terrorists that Pakistan's interior minister said were arrested in the past few days.

Interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat said the men were of African origin, and that one had a multimillion dollar reward on his head. He has refused to name them.

SA men 'very emotional and aggressive'

Hussain, the Gujrat police chief, said the two South Africans and Ghailani denounced America and US President George W Bush as they were arrested.

"They were all very emotional and very aggressive," he said. "They were putting down Bush, saying he is our enemy and we will pursue him and America until we win."

He said Ghailani was shaking with anger as he shouted: "God is great! This is God's land and we are his men."

- SAPA