Unprotected by incompetent security agencies

FOR SOME reason, South Africans have always felt immune to the threat of terror attacks. Perhaps it is the same denialism that we use to delude ourselves that we are the best sportspeople in the world, the biggest economy in Africa and a regional superpower with access to the ears of world leaders.

All of that might have been true once, but it isn’t any longer. Whatever cachet we enjoyed on the world stage has largely dissipated, instead we have steadily slipped further down from that high-water mark.

The institutions that we trust to protect us are a shadow of what they should be: our Defence Force is wholly underfunded and overstretched, while our police and intelligence agencies have been riven asunder by the very factional battles that are splitting the ANC apart.

The net result is that we are totally unprotected from external and internal threats to the sovereignty of our country.

We survived an attempted insurrection last July without any warning from our own crime intelligence or national intelligence agencies. It is a textbook example of the rot that has set in across the entire intelligence community. It is so bad, that only last month, the US embassy saw fit to issue an unprecedented warning to its citizens in South Africa about a potential terror attack by an Isis cell.

As we report today, South Africa is not just a prime target because of our involvement in military operations in Cabo Delgado, we are also a prime destination for terror groups to operate in and train. Either situation is intolerable. Both are catastrophic.

We have a right to be protected, but to achieve that will require firm leadership and that is in very short supply. Until then, we dare not complain about foreign countries issuing warnings in our country, because our own intelligence agencies are either incompetent or too caught up in factional battles.

Or both.