US adds South Africans to Isis terror alert list

The efficacy of SA’s law enforcement authorities came under the spotlight lasted week with the announcement by the US Treasury that it had designated members of an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) cell in the country. The US announced that it has added four South Africans to its terrorist sanctions list for having provided ‘technical, financial or material support’ to an Isis cell it says is operating in SA. According to a Business Day report, this comes at a bad time in terms of SA’s bid to avoid greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international body that sets standards for regimes to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. One of the deficiencies in SA’s regime identified by the FATF is the ineffectiveness of its law enforcement authorities, and the government has been at pains to prove otherwise. The FATF plenary is due to make a decision on whether to greylist SA at its meeting in February.

The US Treasury said brothers Nufael Akbar and Yunus Mohamad Akbar are ‘senior members’ of an Islamic State cell based in Durban and led by Farhad Hoomer, who was placed on the sanctions list in March along with three alleged Islamic State financiers. Two other Hoomer associates – Mohamad Akbar and Umar Akbar, who were arrested by SA police along with Hoomer in 2018 following an attack on a Shia mosque in Durban – were also placed on the sanctions list. Along with Hoomer, they were linked to a plan to detonate incendiary devices at markets around Durban, but the charges of terrorism and extortion of the stores where the devices were planted were later dropped. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also designated eight companies owned, controlled or directed by these men: MA Gold Traders (Pty) Ltd, Bailey Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Flexoseal Waterproofing Solutions (Pty) Ltd, HJ Bannister Construction CC, Sultans Construction CC, Ashiq Jewellers CC, Ineos Trading (Pty) Ltd and Shaahista Shoes CC. The Business Day report notes the sanctions designations mean that all property and all interests in property of these men and entities that are in the US or in control of US persons must be blocked or reported to OFAC, the US Treasury said in its statement. Any transactions with the US involving these individuals, their properties or their interests are prohibited. The recent designation follows a US security alert about a possible terrorist attack in the Sandton area on the weekend of 29 and 30 October, which never materialised.

Full City Press report