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US Receiving Help From South Africa: Senior Diplomat
South Africa has provided tangible help to the United States in its fight against terrorism, a senior US diplomat based in South Africa said Tuesday.
"We are receiving good cooperation from South Africa in the fight against terror," US charge d' Affaires John Blaney told journalists at a breakfast briefing.
This tangible help included intelligence from law enforcement agencies, he added.
Blaney said the U.S.-led international alliance against the terror was a multi-spectrum coalition.
While military strikes were the most visible part of the fight, "other things were happening," he said.
This included stepping up airline security, tightening border control, seizing assets, disrupting the financial channels and grabbing the "bad guys when they show up," he said.
Asked about the list with about 200 names of alleged "suspects" the U.S. handed to South Africa soon after the September 11 attacks, Blaney said similar lists had been distributed to other countries via Interpol and related channels.
He said that to the best of his knowledge, no South African individual was on the list.
He also said the Cape Town-based Islamic group Qibla was not, and had never been, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Qibla vowed on Monday to retaliate against the U. S. interests following air strikes on Afghanistan.
However, the People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) group with which Qibla has links was listed as a terrorist group, Blaney said. PAGAD is also based in Cape Town.
The South African government has so far reserved comments on the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan. But President Thabo Mbeki has cautioned that the fight to rid the world of terrorists should not overshadow the fight to rid it of poverty.
Reports indicated that the attacks have already led to a fall in economic activity, investment and development aid to Africa that could drive 10 million more people below the poverty line and push up infant mortality by 40,000.
Referring to Mbeki's worries, U.S. Consul General in Johannesburg Sue Ford Patrick said on Monday the U.S., as part of the United Nations, was already working on mechanisms to help prevent hunger and poverty before the attacks.
The recent U.S. announcement that it was providing a further 320-million-U.S.-dollar humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan and surrounding states could be cited as an example, Patrick said.
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