The South African government has downplayed the US embassy’s warning of a possible terrorist attack in Sandton on Saturday but other Western embassies are taking the threat more seriously and have repeated the warnings.
The British, Canadian and Australian high commissions and the French and German embassies in Pretoria all relayed to their citizens the US alert of Wednesday that: “The US government has received information that terrorists may be planning to conduct an attack targeting large gatherings of people at an unspecified location in the greater Sandton area of Johannesburg, South Africa, on 29 October 2022.
“There is no further information regarding the timing, method, or target of the potential attack. The US Embassy has advised staff to avoid crowds of people and other large public gatherings in the greater Sandton area of Johannesburg during the weekend of 29-30 October 2022.”
The other embassies relayed the US alert to their citizens rather than independently verifying it and posting their own.
The Community Security Organisation, which provides security to the Jewish community, relayed the US alert to its community, saying that although it did not have any information that the Jewish community was the intended target, it could not rule…