Johannesburg: A suspected explosive device was discovered on Sunday in a mosque near the South African port city of Durban where a fatal knife attack occurred last week, police said.

South Africa is racked by violent crime and social strife rooted in poverty and glaring income disparities, but it is seldom associated with the Islamist militancy seen on other parts of the continent.

"The bomb squad is there now in the mosque and they will give us a report if it is an explosive device or not," said Simphiwe Mhlongo, a spokesman for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, an elite police unit known as the “Hawks."