CAPE TOWN, Nov 29 (AFP) - A Muslim group, People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD), has been blamed for Sunday's bombing of a pizzeria in a trendy Cape Town beachfront.
South African Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete described the group behind the bombing as a "terrorist group," but did not name PAGAD. The media said he was referring to PAGAD.
"We are convinced that there is a group in the Western Cape that has a political agenda and which seeks to accomplish that political agenda by acts of terrorism of the kind we see here today," Tshwete said.
Almost 50 people were injured in the blast, most lightly. Seven victims of the St. Elmo's restaurant bombing in the Camps Bay area remained in hospital Monday.
In the main section of the restaurant, where police believe the bomb was placed under a table, the giant pizza oven bore a large gash, and the ceiling was blown away completely, leaving wiring, wooden beams and plumbing dangling from the roof.
A reward of 1.25 million rand ($210,000) has been offered for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators.
The unnamed group, Tshwete said, was bent on undermining the government, wrecking Cape Town's millennium celebrations and disrupting a massive gathering of religious leaders in the city this week.
"That they choose certain strategic tourist centers is an indication that they are not just shooting in the dark," Tshwete said.
He did not name the group but said it was "well known" in the Cape Town area. No one has claimed responsibility for Sunday's blast.
A spate of bombings in the city in the past two years have been privately linked by police to PAGAD, which is openly at war with drug gangs in the city.
Cape Town was the scene of 79 pipe bomb attacks last year. Police thought after a crackdown over the past few months that the bombings had tapered off.
But the bombing of a gay bar on November 6 and Sunday's St. Elmo's pipe bomb blast have prompted police to express fears of a possible fresh wave of urban violence ahead of the millennium celebrations.
Tshwete said the South African government would seek to tighten "anti-terrorism" laws. "This is an act of terrorism and we have to deal with it as such."
Media reports said police had feared a retaliation attack for the first successful conviction last Friday of a PAGAD member on charges related to terrorism.
Dawood Osman was found guilty of murdering four teenagers in a shooting at the entrance to the city's Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in March last year. He is due to be sentenced next month.
The minister visited the restaurant with Intelligence Minister Joe Nhlanhla, Chief State Prosecutor Bulelani Ngcuka and Police Commissioner George Fivaz.
"What we have now has given us hope that sooner rather than later we shall start closing in on them," Tshwete said.
The minister said the country's crack new Scorpions police unit, modeled on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), had been deployed to investigate the St. Elmo's bombing. "The Scorpions are there, as is the entire intelligence community, drawn from all agencies in the country," Tshwete said.
