South Africa's government on Monday attempted to alleviate fears of possible foreign terrorist attacks as it hosts the 2010 football World Cup, saying it had the security situation well in hand.
The statement comes after comments by the national intelligence service earlier Monday that it was working with foreign spy services to forestall any terrorist threat to the 2010 football World Cup.
The National Intelligency Agency (NIA) was responding to a report in South Africa's Sunday Independent at the weekend claiming a group linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network was planning to attack United States interests in South Africa.
But the state ministry responsible for state security called such fears ungrounded, saying that various security agencies were working closely together to provide security. It added that the ministry would neither confirm nor deny alarmist media reports.
In a surprise move, the US government shut down all its facilities in South Africa for two days last month, quoting a security threat. The closure affected the highly-secured embassy in Pretoria and consulates in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
South Africa's police at the time said they were on top of the situation.
NIA spokeswoman Lorna Daniels told Johannesburg's private 702 radio station Monday that both the intelligence and security services were "working closely to ward off any threats" to the World Cup.
"And we're doing this with our counterparts worldwide," she said.
The Independent quoted two unnamed sources as saying intelligence officials had intercepted a call made to an al-Qaeda-linked group in East Africa allegedly confirming a bombing plot targeting US interests in South Africa.
The Independent did not say where the call was made, saying the state had threatened the paper with legal action if it published sensitive security information.
Until now, southern Africa has been spared in al-Qaeda's more- than-a-decade-long campaign of terrorist attacks against Western interests worldwide.
Security analysts have raised concerns in recent years that southern African countries, with their relatively porous borders, could become a transit point for Muslim extremists.
One of four men convicted of helping carry out the terrorist attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224 people was arrested in South Africa. - Sapa-dpa