Terrorist threats fail to hinder South African tour of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c749- Cricket News Update
A report from the premier British Intelligence agency, Mi5 has been submitted to South African Cricket Board, confirming terrorist threats from Al-Qaeda during the London Olymics 2012, same time when the Proteas will tour England.
The tour will start with a three match test series, followed by 5 One Day Internationals and three T20Is. The opener will commence at 19th July, 2012 at Kennington Oval, London.
Despite such alarming concerns, the CSA chief executive is confident of giving the tour a go ahead, claiming that such threats have been a part of all major events.
"We have not yet studied the reports (by MI5), but we will be doing so with our security experts," said CSA chief executive, Jacques Faul. "This, however, is not a new thing. Such threats happen all the time when big events are possible attack did not have to be at a stadium or fan park to have an effect. hosted, so I doubt we should be too concerned, but we will definitely look into it."
The South African anti-terrorism expert, Anneli Botha - from the Institute for Security Studies, was also keen to play down the situation, claiming that such incidents can happen anywhere and do not need to have a specific target.
The expert stated “Wherever you have people, they will be a target.”
MI5 head Jonathan Evans said that a new breed of British born terrorists are on the loose, trained by Al-Qaeda to simply create violence in the United Kingdom since the British are more informed of the native country.
The concerns for the players have risen since the 3rd March, 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team as they were travelling to the ground for an official Test match against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755. The convoy was attacked at a round-about a few miles away from the Lahore stadium where shots were fired at the Bus, with as many as six policemen killed while several Lankan players were injured, leading to Pakistan losing its International hosting status.
Tags: