http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/secure/2011/07_13/ba.as p?
U.S. concerned by number of S. African passports held by terrorists U.S. intelligence and security officials are stepping up scrutiny of all South African passport holders following the disclosure that a key Al Qaida operative was using a South African passport for travel. The stepped up surveillance followed disclosure in early June that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the Al Qaida terrorists linked to U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya in 1998 carried a South African passport. Mohammed was killed at a checkpoint in Mogadishu, Somalia. South Africa's government is investigating how its passport system was compromised. One expert told the Johannesburg Mail & Guardian newspaper that the passport security was compromised by illegal activity. "It comes down to corruption at [the department of] home affairs," said Anneli Botha a terrorism expert at the Institute for Security Studies. "You can easily get your hands on a legal document through illegal means. I would start looking at the ease with which one can get a driver's license or birth certificate as well. If we had more of a focus on terrorism, home affairs officials would place more emphasis on ensuring that the person applying is the same person on the passport. But it's not a matter of urgency to them," Botha said. U.S. officials remain very concerned about the South African passport found with a key member of al Shabab, Al Qaida's Somalia affiliate. Terrorists seek South African travel documents because it is a neutral country and South Africans, in general, have easy access around the world because they are known to return home from their travels. In 2004, Ihsan Garnaoui, a Tunisian Al Qaida member, told German police he had several South African passports. The following year Haroon Rashid Aswat, a terrorist linked to bus bombings in London, was found to have lived in South Africa and to have travelled to the United Kingdom on a South African passport. Also, a man who traveled to Britain in 2006 used a South African passport under the false name of Altaf Ravat and was involved in planning bomb attacks on transatlantic airplanes. Botha said to fix the problem South Africa's government needs to "clean house and bring criminal charges against people for corruption in home affairs." Home Affairs Director-general Mkuseli Apleni told the newspaper: "The department launched an investigation into the matter in collaboration with relevant law enforcement agencies, including cooperation with our diplomatic mission in Kenya." Investigators said the passport was forged and not issued by "any lawful South African authority with the responsibility for the issuance of passports," and that "the South African movement control system has no record of any movement in or out of the country at any of our ports of entry by Fazul, using the fake passport. Modiri Matthews, the chief director of the immigration inspectorate responsible for investigation, law enforcement and deportation at the department of home affairs, said: "There is no evidence of Mohammed being in the country." "We've had challenges with corruption and syndicates, but we've really been tightening up our countercorruption unit," he said. "There have been people arrested for issuing documents fraudulently." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [email protected]. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [email protected] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtmlYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
