Black Widow White Widow: Is Al-Qaeda operating in South Africa?, by De Wet Potgieter

Black Widow White Widow: Is Al-Qaeda operating in South Africa?, by De Wet Potgieter. The Penguin Group (South Africa). Cape Town, South Africa 2014. ISBN 9780143538899 / ISBN 978-0-14-353889-9

Black Widow White Widow: Is Al-Qaeda operating in South Africa?, by De Wet Potgieter. The Penguin Group (South Africa). Cape Town, South Africa 2014. ISBN 9780143538899 / ISBN 978-0-14-353889-9

From De Wet Potgieter's book, Black Widow White Widow: Is Al-Qaeda operating in South Africa?, the following chapter deals with the start of Muslim extremism in South Africa.

Qibla, the start of Muslim extremism in South Africa

During the height of the struggle years in the dark days of apartheid a small group of extremists exploited this low-intensity urban war situation in their zealous quest to create an Islamic state in South Africa. Soon, Islamic extremism started to flourish. Achmad Cassiem, a radical Islamic cleric, took the lead, starting a small extremist group which he called the Qibla Mass Movement. The name "Qibla" was chosen on purpose and it means "the true direction of prayer to Mecca". In those days, Cassiem used the political struggle as a cover ensuring that his beliefs, inspired by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, prospered among his group of followers who were based mainly in the Western Cape, but more so in the greater Cape Town metropolis. The organisation emerged as a militant pro-Shi'ite grouping with the aim of promoting the aims and ideals of the Iranian Revolution in South Africa. It aimed to implement and further the strict Islamic principles associated with Iran on Muslims in South Africa. The organisation also often used the front names Muslims Against Global Oppression (MAGO) and Muslims Against Illegitimate Leaders (MAIL) when they launched anti-Western campaigns. Imam Cassiem's organisation had paved the way for a more violent organisation, People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad), which emerged in 1996. Already in those early days Qibla was internationally regarded as one of the most well-established Islamic organisations in South Africa and it didn't take long for the United States government to label it as a terrorist organisation. While Qibla styled its doctrine and militancy on the Iranian revolutionary model, it soon started sending its members abroad for military training in Libya. The South African counter-intelligence agencies and its brethren in the West viewed this with concern, especially when members of Qibla went for military training in Pakistan and, in the 1990s, were deployed in South Lebanon to fight side by side with Hezbollah. By the millennium more than 100 Qibla members had been arrested in South Africa for violence-related incidents as well as for murder. In 1995 Imam Cassiem's influence and stronghold over the South African Muslim community increased and he was appointed chairman of the Islamic Unity Convention (IUC) - an umbrella organisation for more than 250 Muslim groups in South Africa. The general belief was that the IUC had always acted as a front for Qibla. In the years before the 9/11 attacks, Qibla had crossed swords with the United States and its fight against Islamic terrorism on its home ground. In his research work, Muslim Identities and Political Strategies: A Case Study of Muslims in the Greater Cape Town area of South Africa 1994-2000, Dr Heinrich Matthee said the Qibla leader's approach with the IUC was apparently a broad front incorporating diverse interest groups and allowing a cleric who was not a competitor to initially become the leader. The entrenched position and greater organisational skills of Qibla members in the front organisation was therefore used to take over the leadership of an organisation much bigger than Qibla itself. Soon after Al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York, Qibla announced that its fighters would go to Afghanistan. Years before that, however, this small group of extremists in South Africa started showing its true colours by taking on the US government's stance against global Islamic terrorism. [...]

This is an excerpt from Black Widow White Widow: Is Al-Qaeda operating in South Africa?, by De Wet Potgieter.
Title: Black widow white widow
Subtitle: Is Al-Qaeda operating in South Africa?
Author: De Wet Potgieter
Genre: Current affairs
Publisher: The Penguin Group (South Africa)
Cape Town, South Africa 2014
ISBN 9780143538899 / ISBN 978-0-14-353889-9
Hardcover, 19 x 23 cm, 216 pages

Potgieter, De Wet im Namibiana-Buchangebot

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