SPECIAL REPORT:

Security and Africa’s First World Cup

May 18, 2010

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Security and Africa’s
First World Cup

Security is always a concern for organizers

of the World Cup, and this year’s upcoming
tournament in South Africa — the first
World Cup on the continent — is no
exception. Envisioning a range of threats
from terrorism to petty crime, tournament
organizers are trying to beef up security in
nine cities that will serve as venues for the
games. Less than a month before the tournament begins, STRATFOR thought it time to look at how
real those threats are and how security preparations are shaping up.

In June and July, South Africa will host the first World Cup tournament ever held in Africa. The first
game of the tournament will be June 11 in Johannesburg, where the finals are scheduled to be held
July 11. The World Cup draws hordes of spectators, sponsors and dignitaries, including this year,
perhaps, U.S. President Barack Obama, who has expressed an interest in attending should the U.S.
team proceed to the finals.

Security is always a concern for World Cup organizers, and this year’s tournament — the largest
sporting event ever hosted on African soil — raises concerns about South Africa’s ability to provide a
secure environment for the month-long event. While terrorism is high on the list of organizers’
concerns, the security issue that will affect the most people will likely be violent crime, which has
grown endemic in South Africa over the past two decades.

The South Africa World Cup Organizing Committee has designated nine cities to host the soccer
matches: Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein (Mangaung in the local language), Pretoria
(Tshwane), Rustenburg, Port Elizabeth, Polokwane and Nelspruit. Semi-final matches will be played in
Cape Town and Durban, the third place match will be played in Port Elizabeth and the finals will be
played in Johannesburg.

In the run-up to the event, STRATFOR thought it appropriate to take a look at the security
environment in South Africa, evaluate specific threats and offer guidance on how to avoid danger
during the tournament.

Crime
Unlike terrorism, which tends to be driven by ideology, criminal activity is driven by opportunity and
the desire for quick cash, and both of those factors will be in abundance during the World Cup. To
mitigate against any conceivable security threat, an estimated 44,000 members of the South African
Police Service (SAPS), the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) and private security
personnel will be deployed at tournament venues, hotels where the teams will be staying and
anywhere considered a possible launching point for criminal or terrorist acts (more on these
deployments below in the section titled “Security Preparations”). Many national teams will also have
their own security details. The U.S. team, for example, will be guarded by personnel from the State
Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS).

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Foreign governments also have been heavily involved in assisting South African security officials with
logistics and communications in preparation for the tournament and will remain involved until it ends.
The DSS has extensive experience conducting security for large, high-profile events, and there has
been extensive coordination with the German authorities to learn from their experiences hosting the
last World Cup, which was held in 2006. These measures will certainly go a long way toward securing
the stadiums, hotels and other World Cup venues, most of which are located in city centers. But efforts
to secure World Cup activities could displace criminal attacks to more accessible targets outside this
ring of security, to urban and rural areas where the police presence will be weaker.

Property crime is widespread in South Africa and found in every city throughout the country. The
country’s criminal elements tend to be organized and efficient, with gangs often conducting practice
runs and extensive preoperational surveillance before hitting hardened targets such as armored cash
transporters and ATMs (sometimes using explosives and automatic weapons). Organized-crime leaders
are even known to specify high-demand products for theft, including certain models of cars and cell

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phones and other electronics. In the pursuit of cash or valuables, criminals are known to use extreme
violence against anyone attempting to stop them. While such extreme measures would not likely be
employed against unarmed civilians during the World Cup, firearms, knives and other weapons are
plentiful in South Africa and are
frequently used if a victim resists.

Most crime in South Africa takes place in

underdeveloped and poorly policed
townships outside of the main city
centers. However, criminals certainly do
not limit themselves to townships, and in
order to pursue wealthier targets they are
known to attack in upscale neighborhoods
and on downtown streets. In 2007, the
wife of prominent businessman and
senior African National Congress (ANC)
politician Tokyo Sexwale was targeted in
a carjacking in an upscale, well-policed
Johannesburg neighborhood. Three
hijackers in a vehicle cut off Judy Sexwale’s BMW in a parking lot, forced her from the car and sped off
in it, all in about 10 seconds. The incident occurred at 11 a.m., with numerous bystanders looking on.
Carjackers do not discriminate between white, black, foreigner or local; the trigger is the appearance
of wealth — mainly clothes, accoutrements and cars. Carjacking has become so rampant in South
Africa that many South Africans do not stop at stop signs if they perceive any potential risk as they
approach an intersection.

Suggesting an even greater threat than that posed by local street gangs and criminals, STRATFOR
sources say that criminals from Nigeria are planning to travel to South Africa and take advantage of
the throngs of tourists attending World Cup events during the month-long tournament. Along with
Chinese and Russians, Nigerians are leading organized-crime figures in South Africa, focusing on fraud
and black-market activities. Driven by economic desperation, Zimbabweans also present a significant,
though less sophisticated, criminal threat in South Africa. It is likely that migratory criminals from
other African countries will also prey upon World Cup visitors, contributing to the prevailing threat.
This criminal element will include everything from the relatively harmless hawkers of African curios
who will be found outside every tournament venue and major hotel to organized gangs that will surveil
unsuspecting tourists and rob them when the opportunities arise.

Not all criminal activity in South Africa involves property crime. Among all the world’s countries, South
Africa has the highest incidence of reported rapes per capita. While rapists do not specifically target
foreigners, gangs often use the same level of speed and precision to identify and attack rape victims
as they do in conducting carjackings. Rape is also employed to instill fear in victims, particularly white
victims, during home invasions. Because of the high level of police protection in the city centers during
the month-long World Cup, tourists should be relatively secure in these areas, but the risk of being
targeted by opportunistic rapists and other criminals will increase in outlying areas. Finally, rape
carries the associated risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, since South Africa has a high incidence of the
disease (in 2008, approximately 11 percent of South Africans had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS).

When visiting South Africa during the World Cup, foreign travelers are advised to be mindful of their
surroundings and maintain situational awareness at all times in public areas. Visitors should never
expose valuables, including wallets, jewelry, cell phones and cash, any longer than necessary. And
they should avoid traveling at night, especially into townships and areas of South African cities that
are outside of the more secure and centralized soccer venues. Outlying areas will have scant police
protection, since most of the country’s security apparatus will be focused on the World Cup. No matter
where they are, foreign visitors are encouraged to travel in large groups (three or more people), since
in South Africa, as elsewhere, there is generally more safety in numbers.

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© 2010 STRATFOR 700 Lavaca Street, Suite 900 Austin, TX 78701 Tel: 1-512-744-4300
any geographical region. Grassroots terrorists, on the other hand, may work in groups, but these
groups are small cells unaffiliated with known and monitored jihadist entities and are virtually invisible.
In both cases, however, the lack of support networks typically limits their capability, and thus the
damage they can cause. The low profile of lone wolves and grassroots jihadists generally means they
lack experienced bombmakers, operatives and strategists, and their attacks typically come across as
amateurish. Nevertheless, given the global attention to South Africa during the World Cup, it would
not take a large attack to attract worldwide media coverage.

Other Terrorist Threats

While the actions of lone wolves and grassroots jihadists are difficult to predict and cannot be ruled
out, there are no major political conflicts in South Africa at the moment that might induce a terrorist
act. Nor is there any recent history of terrorism in South Africa. That, along with the general trend in
grassroots attacks, suggests that any ideologically motivated terrorist attack in South Africa during the
World Cup would likely — if successful at all — be small and unsophisticated.

Of course, jihadists by no means have a monopoly on the tactic of terrorism. Any individual or group
can attempt to affect political change through violence against the public. And the World Cup certainly
offers an extremely public forum for a group or individual to air their grievances against the South
African government, or any of the other 31 countries represented by the qualifying teams. Reasons for
terror attacks can be as provocative as ethnic disputes, as mundane as personal financial problems or
as unpredictable as mental illness.

Although terrorism is not common in modern-day South Africa, there has been a trace of such activity
in its recent history. During apartheid, the ANC — the current ruling party — was considered a terrorist
group by the South African government because it was opposed to white rule and expressed its
opposition through violence. On the far right, the white supremacist group Afrikaner
Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) committed violent acts against black South Africans and staged protests
against the government during the final days of apartheid. The AWB has not carried out violent attacks
in decades, but its leader, Eugene Terre Blanche, was murdered by two black farmhandsctss ove8217 Td [((r)1

© 2010 STRATFOR 700 Lavaca Street, Suite 900 Austin, TX 78701 Tel: 1-512-744-4300 www.stratfor.com
violence, there are no indications that it, or any other grassroots jihadist group in South Africa, is
planning to carry out an attack during the World Cup.

A recent incident in Angola during that country’s hosting of the African Cup of Nations soccer
tournament raised questions about the possibility of a similar domestic terrorist threat in South Africa.
In January, the Togo soccer team participating in the tournament in Angola’s Cabinda province was
attacked by members of the rebel group Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC).
Armed with AK-47s, a small number of FLEC fighters, who are opposed to the Angolan government’s
presence in the oil-rich province, shot at the bus carrying the Togo soccer team as it was traveling to a
game, injuring several team members and killing two. Angola’s security environment is much less
stable than that of South Africa, where no rebel groups on the order of FLEC operate. South Africa also
does not have nearly the same level of volatility in its political conflicts as Angola, where
disagreements can quickly become violent.

Security Preparations
For the duration of the World Cup tournament, the South African Police Service and the South African
National Defense Force will deploy forces to the streets, air and sea to protect against threats to
tournament venues. Most of the measures (such as naval patrols off the coast and overflights of
fighter jets) are in light of the jihadist threat, which, while unlikely to materialize in an attack, is still
seen as a looming worst-case scenario. Private security firms have been contracted by the tournament
organizing committee to provide security around and inside the soccer stadiums.

Participating teams and attending dignitaries (including visiting heads of state) will likely have security
escorts that will include protective motorcades so as not to require closing off streets. Teams will have
both primary and alternate travel routes, along with designated safe areas in the event of an incident
and stationary protective teams at their hotels. Uniformed and plainclothes security officers will likely
be stationed along travel routes between team accommodation sites and the playing venues. As a
result of these precautions taken by the participating teams, along with the overall security umbrella
provided by the South African government, the “window of opportunity” to attack a World Cup team
will be very small. As a byproduct of these measures, potential attacks will likely be diverted to more
accessible soft targets, which could be unsuspecting tourists or bystanders, especially in areas from
which police have been pulled to beef up security at tournament venues.

South African security agencies do have recent experience safeguarding large sporting events like the
World Cup. In June 2009, South Africa hosted the Confederation Cup, an international soccer
tournament that gathered eight teams in four different stadiums around the country for two weeks
without incident. This time around, South African officials are making even more extensive
preparations to secure tournament venues, and remaining concerns largely involve the execution of
the security plan in the event of an incident.

The federal police and military units to be deployed and the outline of this year’s World Cup security
umbrella include the following:

• South African air force (SAAF) Gripen fighter jets (currently South Africa has about six
operational out of 12 delivered from an order of 26), which will enforce no-fly zones above
World Cup venues. The aircraft will rotate to different air force bases depending on threat levels
determined for each game.
• Other SAAF and army aircraft such as smaller Hawk fighter jets, transport planes and
helicopters will be mobilized for other duties, including logistics.
• South African navy ships will be deployed, including patrol corvettes that will be stationed as
command platforms in the harbors at Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth to provide
additional radar and anti-aircraft coverage.

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 • Naval submarines, minesweepers and other vessels will be deployed to provide supplemental
coverage.
• Military and police explosive ordinance disposal teams, including sniffer dogs, will be present at
all stadiums.
• The SAPS Special Task Force, the police force’s specialized counterterrorism team, will be on
standby for rapid response to any crisis situation in the country from its national base in
Pretoria.
• Special weapons and tactics (“SWAT”) teams will be mobilized from city-based police force
detachments.
• A national-level joint operations “fusion center” will be maintained in Pretoria, while each
province hosting a World Cup venue will have a provincial-level command post.
• There are no designated demonstration areas for protesters, and no protests will be permitted
at World Cup venues or fan parks adjacent to the venues.
• For access to VIP sections at the stadiums, there will likely be credential controls in place,
including portable fingerprint scanners.
• Game attendees will be inspected by metal detectors and hand wands, and all vehicles arriving
at the stadiums will be searched.
• While there are no “official” hotels for the visiting teams, there has been communication
between World Cup security officials and management at the high-end hotels likely to
accommodate teams and dignitaries.
• Uniformed and plainclothed police officers will be present at high-profile and popular venues
such as Nelson Mandela Square in Johannesburg, the Victoria and Alfred (V&A) Waterfront in
Cape Town and the Gateway in Durban, all of which are likely to receive large numbers of
World Cup visitors.

Political Instability
The ANC is entrenched as the ruling party of the South African government. In the short term, the
ANC does not face any threat to its political hegemony from a rival political party. Whatever instability
the government does face stems from within its ruling alliance, which, along with the ANC, consists of
the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party.

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