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Blasts rip through Soweto
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Nine bombs have exploded in South Africa's Soweto township killing one woman and critically injuring her husband. Government officials urged residents not to panic as police began following up what was described as "concrete leads" and forensic experts combed the bomb sites The bombs exploded at a series of different targets including a garage, temples and railway stations in 10 hours from about midnight Tuesday local time. A 10th device was defused at a petrol station and an 11th exploded at a Buddhist temple 110km (70 miles) northeast of Soweto. President Thabo Mbeki blamed the explosions on white right-wing extremists saying they were plotting to overthrow his majority-rule government, which came to power after the end of apartheid in 1994. He told a news conference: "These are criminal actions that seek to introduce a terrorist campaign in the country. They will certainly fail." "The information the government has had for some time ... indicates that the right wing have the intention to conduct a campaign of this type to destabilise the country and create a political climate that would enable them to take ... actions for the removal of the government and the installation of some other government." A woman was killed by shrapnel from one of the railway station explosions and her husband was injured by debris.
Four bombs exploded near one railway station, two went off at a second station and two further blasts hit other railway lines, Reuters reported. One of the explosions blew a hole in the wall of a Soweto mosque, and two people were injured in a blast at a Buddhist temple in Bronkhorstspruit. Nqakula said if the petrol station bomb that was defused had exploded "there would have been maximum damage." When asked if they could be linked to right-wing white power groups Nqakula said: "We are not eliminating anything." He added that the people responsible for the attacks were "experts" who "knew what they were doing." Police Director Henriette Bester told The Associated Press: "It is unknown who is responsible. No one is claiming responsibility and no arrests have been made." Muslims denounced the attack on the mosque. One man told CNN's Charlayne Hunter-Gault it was an attack on Allah and Allah would retaliate against those responsible. Nomvula Mokoyane, the provincial minister for safety and security said the attack was "very shocking, and it deserves the condemnation of all South Africans," AP reported. "This is actually against our own democracy," she added. "We cannot ... allow this kind of anarchy." In recent weeks, police have discovered several weapons caches, including homemade bombs, and arrested 14 people accused of involvement in a plot by white extremists to attack the government. The men, who police described as a "maverick, isolated group intending to destabilise the country," were scheduled to go on trial next year. Authorities say the ringleaders remained at large. -- CNN's Johannesburg Bureau Chief Charlayne Hunter-Gault contributed to this report.
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