“To say that ISIS is in South Africa is inaccurate,” this is according to Intelligence Analyst, Nhlakanipho Nzimande, whose job it is to look into the threat of terrorism in countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which includes South Africa.

Speaking to Political Analysis South Africa on Saturday, 24 February, Nzimande dismissed media reports of an ISIS terrorist threat in South Africa.

The reports stem from the alleged abduction of a British expat couple by a male and female duo that has since been arrested. The reports also made mention of a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) security assessment of South Africa – that seemed to suggest that the abduction of the British couple was related to terrorism – an assessment that was later reported by South African media outlets as a “travel advisory.”

Nzimande, says “we have to look at the actual text from the FCO, it was alluding to the fact that ISIS could be here because you have a lot of people coming back from Syria, or that have been pushed out of Syria, or who travel to those areas, who are now looking to come back here, and that is possibly where the threat is.”

“So it’s not saying that they have identified specific people that are part of the group waiting to initiate attacks, it’s just that there is a possibility. And unfortunately we’ve had two individuals that were arrested last year, and now these two, that were arrested this month.”

Although Nzimande agrees that there are ISIS sympathisers in South Africa, he says it is, however, the same “case in Europe or anywhere else in world,” and in any event, ISIS sympathisers in South Africa are not organised enough to perpetrate attacks.

Nzimande adds that a distinction should always be made between crime and terrorism when talking about South Africa. Especially in instances where alleged terrorists have been found to be in possession of munitions. As these cases “speak more to a crime problem, than a terrorist one, such as how easily they [the alleged ISIS sympathisers] were able to acquire those weapons, especially in the context of a crime-ridden South Africa,” says Nzimande.

He also cautioned against the attribution of terrorism in South Africa, to any particular group or race, saying that South Africa is “way too diverse to start othering one specific group, as we [South Africa] will miss the point about where the threat actually comes from.

“In the end, South African security forces are adequately trained and can mitigate the risk [of terrorism],” says Nzimande.