Playing Ostrich: Lessons Learned from South Africa’s Response to Terrorism

Terrorism Security Criminalization

From terror financing to access to safehouses and fraudulently acquired South African passports and identity documents to the provision of paramilitary training as well as the use of its territory as an operational base to strike at other countries, South Africa is emerging as an increasingly attractive terrorist haven. This reality came to the fore with the case of Haroon Rashid Aswat in 2005. Aswat was detained in Zambia after his phone number appeared on all four of London’s July 7, 2005, suicide bombers’ cell phones.