Recruits return from IS

SA not immune to attacks, extremism

THE Muslim holy month of Ramadaan, which begins this weekend, would be used to intensify the discourse against the ideology promoted by Islamic State, a Muslim academic has said.

Na’eem Jeenah, of the Afro-Middle East Centre, was speaking in the wake of the release of an Institute for Security Studies (ISS) report that revealed the possible return of at least 100 South African Muslims who had voluntarily left the country to join the terror group.

IS came to prominence in 2014 by seizing territory in Syria and Iraq. The group declared the establishment of a “caliphate” – a state governed by Islamic law by a caliph, God’s deputy on Earth, and demanded that Muslims across the world swear allegiance to its leader, known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The group has become notorious for its brutality, which includes public beheadings.

The ISS report comes in the wake of a terrorist incident in Manchester, England, this week when IS suicide bomber Salman Abedi killed 22 people.

ISS states that South Africa has been linked to al-Shabaab, alQaeda and, more recently, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, with 60 to 100 South Africans estimated to have joined the group between 2014 and 2015.

Half of those, mainly women and children, have since returned to South Africa, while it is believed those yet to return have been in IS territory for a longer period, and have been exposed to extreme forms of violence.

Those who returned were debriefed by State Security officials and a decision was made not to prosecute them.

The report, which examines the threat violent extremism poses to South Africa and the government’s response to this challenge, says that “While South Africa has not experienced a terrorist attack in over a decade, it is not immune to the global challenges posed by violent extremism”.

Co-author Raeesah Cassim Cachalia found that South Africa had faced local extremist threats in the past, with the last known plot thwarted in 2012 when a farright group planned an attack on the ANC’s national conference in Mangaung.

“Collectively, these events have raised a number of questions around violent extremism in South Africa and the State’s capacity to respond.

“While the threats previously posed by domestic extremist groups have diminished, new concerns have emerged relating to international extremist groups,” she said.

Jeenah said there was no evidence that South Africans who joined IS were returning to the country.

“This is a possibility, but it is not pending. In the event that IS recruits do return to South Africa, the South African government will have to decide what happens to them on a case-by-case basis.

“A number of South Africans joined IS not as combatants, but as migrants and worked as teachers and engineers. In this case, it is probable that they did not violate any South African law, and it would be difficult for the South African government to prosecute them,” he said.

Jeenah said there was no cause for panic as there was no evidence to suggest that returnees, if there were any, would target South Africa for an attack.

“The South African government, particularly the State Security Agency, has a wide-ranging intelligence-gathering network that seems to have a good grasp of the prevalence of extremist ideas in this country, and will, I am sure, already be on the lookout for the possibility of returnees. However, within the Muslim community, while there is no panic, there are certainly attempts to challenge the kind of discourse that IS promotes,” he said.

Jeenah said there was a common misconception that all Muslims were terrorists.

“There seems to be a sense among South Africans that extremists (of whatever flavour) should not be equated with the communities from which they come. Thus, the fact that we had the Boeremag, which carried out terrorist acts on South African soil, does not implicate all white Afrikaners or all Christians as terrorists.

“Similarly, the fact that a few dozen Muslims might hold extremist ideas or might have even joined extremist groups does not imply that all Muslims are extremists or violent. This understanding pervades South African society, and the South African government,” he said.

Jeenah said mosques and various Muslim organisations across the country had embarked on an education campaign around the nature of IS from 2014, when a group of South Africans travelled to Syria to join the group.

“This campaign is not limited to Fridays or to mosques, but uses a vast network of Muslim institutions, Muslim media (including print, radio and TV), and Muslim platforms, which include the Friday Jumu’ah platform, when hundreds of thousands of Muslims come together across the country.

“We can expect, also, that through the month of Ramadaan such programmes will continue with a renewed earnestness,” he said.