The instigators of the violent insurgence that brought destruction in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng intended targeting more key infrastructure, including airports, gas pipelines, breweries and power stations.
This is according to state security minister Ayanda Dlodlo, who said the State Security Agency (SSA), working with the army and police, foiled several attempts to further disrupt the country's economy.
But senior government insiders said Dlodlo's department and the South African Police Service's (SAPS's) crime intelligence (CI) were caught napping and could not warn the state in time to prevent the catastrophic events that unfolded this week.
In addition, Dlodlo and the police still will not name the 12 suspects they say they are pursuing, nor give the identity of the suspect who was arrested this week or say what charges they could face.
This raises doubts about the information shared by the government. At the time of going to press last night, announcements and revelations had not been followed by any action to apprehend the so-called instigators.
In an interview yesterday, Dlodlo praised her agency for preventing what she compared to the Capitol Hill events in the US, associated with former president Donald Trump's resistance to leaving the White House after he lost his bid for re-election.
In another US reference, she said: "We should have viewed it like 9/11," referring to the terrorist attacks of 2001.
The chaos in SA started with a blockade of the N2 and the N3 highways in KwaZulu-Natal by mobs who hijacked trucks and parked them across all lanes. Dozens of trucks were burnt near the Mooi River plaza and other areas.
The focus then moved to Gauteng, with mass action that blocked the M2 near the Denver hostel in Johannesburg. After that the destruction intensified with the looting of malls, warehouses, shopping centres and liquor stores.
President Cyril Ramaphosa warned on Friday night that SA may still be under threat as the perpetrators are at large and their networks have not been dismantled.
Dlodlo yesterday said that more national roads and an SA Breweries hub linked to Durban's gas pipeline were among the targets of a co-ordinated operation.
The unrest followed the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court.
"Even if it was about JZ it went horribly wrong because it got hijacked," said Dlodlo.
One insider said that at the centre of the riots are prominent politicians in KZN who are funding foot soldiers to target key economic hubs
The security system had averted a far worse situation in the past weeks, she said.
But highly placed sources in the government and SAPSCI told the Sunday Times that the SSA and CI failed to monitor and pay attention to the constant gatherings taking place in KwaZulu-Natal, particularly the threats made prior to Zuma's jailing and the "tea parties" taking place in Nkandla.
One insider in the government said that at the centre of the riots are prominent politicians in KwaZulu-Natal, including a mayor, a prominent politician from Mooi River, an ANC heavyweight and a businessman with links to the uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA), who are funding foot soldiers to target key economic hubs.
The insider further said that on the night Zuma was found guilty and sentenced, a meeting was held in Johannesburg and a plan was put in motion. An attempt was made to recruit like-minded political parties to attack the Constitutional Court ruling and cause mayhem.
"There was no project to address the threat of violence as it is something that has been boiling for a while. The only intelligence that was obtained was the planned blockade of the Mooi River [toll plaza] but the info was never operationalised.
"To say more was averted through intelligence information is pure lies. They normally do that when nothing happens in other places. The police minister saying that they thwarted a plan to burn a hospital with patients in it is just lies because they're even struggling to identify or arrest the so-called instigators of this violence," said a highly placed CI source.
Dlodlo insisted that her department warned the rest of the government about the likelihood of unrest due to increasing hardship associated with persistent poverty and the economic disruption associated with Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns.
She could not link Zuma personally to the unrest. She said the attacks were very co-ordinated. "It's by no coincidence that people would loot. After they are finished looting, people come back and burn," she said.
"I think South Africans now can see that the machinery is in action, plus intelligence is on the ground and intelligence has been on the ground for some time now."
Another highly placed government insider speaking on condition of anonymity said the SSA had also failed to conduct any operational intelligence in KwaZulu-Natal and ignored the threats made under the guise of defending Zuma.
"They ignored the threats because of their disorganisation and lack of knowledge of state security. This is exposing them because the situation could have been prevented and people's businesses would not have been burnt to the ground," said the source.
"These guys have been organising themselves through indunas, amabutho and MKMVA. No-one monitored those meetings in Nkandla. [Police minister] Bheki Cele went there and drank tea but as a minister of police he should have known that things were going to fall apart and that an operation needed to be activated to monitor KZN.
"SSA as well ignored these meetings. There were no operatives on the ground," said the insider.
The insider also said that the SSA is chasing shadows and pointing fingers at people who were named on social media platform WhatsApp as being behind the plot to cause mayhem.
The insider shared screen shots of the WhatsApp group, which named the likes of former SSA operative Thulani Dhlomo, a staunch supporter of Zuma, who this week rubbished claims attributed to the agency that he was among the instigators.
"They [SSA] have no clue and don't know who are the people behind this plot. There is nothing they are going to find on Dhlomo. What Ayanda [Dlodlo] claims is the intelligence they have is something they picked up from a WhatsApp group which was being circulated.
They ignored the threats because of their disorganisation and lack of knowledge of state security
The SSA was never ready in any way. From the onset they should have attended all those gatherings and tea parties which were taking place, have their informants on the ground, but they did nothing, which is why police could not counter that anarchy that was taking place," said the insider.
The SAPS declined to answer detailed questions regarding allegations that it had deployed operatives only this week and that CI had no registered project to monitor KwaZulu-Natal.
"The functioning and/or deployment of crime intelligence on this or any other matter is an operational issue that we are not at liberty to comment on publicly. Furthermore, we are at this stage also not at liberty to respond to individual media inquiries pending termination of the stabilisation and response operation around the recent violent unrest in largely KZN and GP," said national police spokesperson Gen Mathapelo Peters.
She said that of the more than 2,550 suspects arrested after the week's unrest, 1,692 were arrested in KwaZulu-Natal.
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