Ministerial warning: S.African bombers planning major blast

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Reuters) -- Cape Town is threatened with a major bomb blast as a group blamed for a series of bombings switches to more powerful explosives, South African Safety Minister Steve Tshwete said on Monday.

"They are using fertilizer and TNT, but they have some problems with the combination," Tshwete told a news conference. "That has meant the detonations are not as powerful as they would like them to be."

Devices used in the country's top tourist destination in the past were simple pipebombs. But three recent blasts involved the use of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

Experts say a fertilizer bomb that detonated correctly could have an impact as devastating as the one in Oklahoma City in 1995 that destroyed a government building and killed 168 people.

Tshwete, the national minister in charge of the police, blamed Muslim vigilante group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) for all of the bombs in the past two years as well as the murder last week of a magistrate who had been trying urban terror cases.

A car believed to have been used in the drive-by shooting of magistrate Pieter Theron on Thursday exploded in a busy street in a Cape Town suburb late on Friday. No injures were reported.

"Security data at our disposal indicates there is only one direction from which the bombs came and that is PAGAD," Tshwete said. "Police are not looking anywhere else... because there is no evidence anyone else is involved."

He said the state was being targeted because of its support for gay and lesbian rights and abortion, which had led PAGAD to brand the government as "satanic."

"Our friends in Algeria have instructed us that if we are not taking a bold stand we might soon be facing a similar situation to them. That was how it started there," Tshwete said, referring to Algeria's decade of bloody conflict between Islamic guerrillas and government forces.

PAGAD has denied the accusations, but Tshwete noted that several of its members had been convicted for murder, explosives and firearms offences and many more were either in court, in custody or out on bail.

Ibrahim Jenneker and two fellow top members of PAGAD's enforcement arm -- the "G-Force" -- are in jail awaiting trial on a total of 124 charges including murdering a policeman. At least three witnesses against the men have been killed.

That trial and another of PAGAD leader Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim -- accused of murder and crimes against the state -- are set to start in November just as the city's tourist season gets under way. Security at courts and for officials has been raised.

Tourism is South Africa's biggest foreign exchange earner after mining, and most of the money comes through Cape Town.

There have been 19 blasts in Cape Town since the Planet Hollywood restaurant in the Waterfront tourist area was bombed in August 1998.

Targets have included police stations, a court, a synagogue, gay bars, restaurants, the airport and a city thoroughfare.

Three people have been killed in the explosions, with many seriously maimed among the more than 100 injured. No one has claimed responsibility or been convicted.

Tshwete said the bombers were operating in cells of two or three people spread across the crime-ridden Cape Flats to the east of the city, making it very hard for security agents to infiltrate.

He said evidence suggested anywhere with a gay or lesbian link or an association with the United States could be a target, as were narrow streets which would intensify a blast.

But he said he was convinced the bombers and their backers would soon be caught, tried and convicted.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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