Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News, 2015-02-25
While Top secret Spy Cables exposed by Al Jazeera Network has implicated South Africa in the biggest leak of state security documents in the country’s history, Darul Uloom Zakariyya in Zakariyya Park, south of Johannesburg was not spared from the leak.
The respected Islamic institution has also come under the spotlight for fronting alleged terrorist training camps.
Spy cables have revealed businesses in South Africa have allegedly been used as fronts to help forward the Iranian revolution, and there are jihad training camps at Zakariyya Park in Lenasia, and at a farm in Port Elizabeth and in KwaZulu-Natal.
Al Jazeera on Monday night revealed details of South Africa’s murky intelligence operations through documents in its possession spanning a period from 2006 until December 2014 which looked at the Iranian Intelligence Service’s operations in South Africa including detailed briefings and internal analyses written by operatives of South Africa’s State Security Agency (SSA).
However Darul Uloom Zakarriya has hit back and demanded an apology from Al Jazeera in a statement issued by the institution.
Darul Uloom Zakariyya said it expressed a deep sense of disappointment that reports released by Al Jazeera identifying the institution and others as Jihadist training facilities.
“The reports are wholly untrue and maliciously so. This allegation was printed on your website under the South African Operational Target Analysis of Iran whereas our institution is a strictly Sunni institution who are diametrically opposed to Shiasim and we have no ties to Iran or any country,” the Principal of Darul Uloom Zakariyya Moulana Shabbier Ahmed Saloojee said in the statement.
Moulana Saloojee said Darul Uloom Zakariyya is strictly academic and is unlike any instituton in South Africa in that it offers academic tuition to students in Islamic sciences.
“Our institution is a religious one and all students are legal and have valid and proper visas. Students are strongly directed to distance themselves from all politics and anything that could bring the institute or country into disregard.”
Darul Uloom Zakariyya urged Al Jazeera to verify information before disseminating it. “We were also not afforded the right of response to this article which is unethical.”
“We therefore demand an apology from your station and also demand that our response be printed and published on your website,” Darul Uloom Zakariyya said.
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