CHAPTER 8
BBC World Report - Wire Release
Potential terror attacks in residential neighborhoods in Mar del Plata, Argentina and Cape Town, South Africa
*** Breaking News Update: additional blasts reported in Karachi, Pakistan and Jakarta, Indonesia. We will update this report as details emerge. ***
Cape Town, South Africa // The sound of automatic gun fire and grenade explosions shattered the early morning calm in Cape Town today, as a group estimated at 20 armed assailants entered an apartment building and killed 14 people.
Police have released no official information about the attack.
Eye witnesses at the scene described it as a special-operations-style attack. A BBC reporter onsite took this eyewitness statement: “Yeah I seen it, looked like a tank or something, you know, one of them armored troop carriers, rolling up on the curb and then dudes was pouring out it like ninjas or robot soldiers or something, moving all mechanical like and then it’s like the whole building exploded, glass falling all over the place, and I ran up on out of there. I mean, it’s a rough neighborhood, but man, I ain’t never seen nothing like that. I figured, at first, it was, you know, a drug raid. Whatever it was, it done gone real wrong.”
Another witness, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the group had no official insignia on their vehicle or uniforms.
A reporter with Reuters who briefly gained access to the scene before police removed him, described it this way: “It looked to me like a safe house, maybe CIA or MI6. It would have to be somebody very well-funded to have that kind of technology: a situation-room with wall-to-wall computer screens and a massive server room. There were bodies everywhere. About half wore plain-clothes; the rest were dressed in black body armor similar to what witnesses say the attackers wore.”
It remains unclear if the attackers incurred any casualties and were forced to leave anyone behind or if the bodies were those of individuals defending the location.
The BBC sought a comment from both the CIA and MI6 for this report. Both declined.
The incident in Cape Town follows a similar story earlier today in Mar del Plata, Argentina, where a massive explosion in a low-income neighborhood killed 12 people at approximately 2 AM local time. Bystanders say the explosion followed a raid by a heavily armed group that no one could identify.
As with the attack in Cape Town, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack in Mar del Plata.
“It’s very concerning that we have no idea who’s involved,” said Richard Bookmeyer, a Professor at American University. “Based on the initial reports, if either the victims or the perpetrators of the attacks are part of a terrorist network… it would indicate a level of sophistication not currently thought possible by any known terror entity. It’s either a new actor or a significant evolution of an existing group. Both scenarios would require re-examining what we think we know about the global terrorism landscape.”
We will update this story as details unfold.