More bombs feared

Press, 3 September 1986, Page 8

More bombs feared

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg A bomb blast that injured at least 18 people in a South African supermarket yesterday has increased fears of a fresh bombing campaign by anti-apartheid guerrillas and prompted Pretoria to call for yet more security. The official Bureau for Information blamed the outlawed African National Congress for the blast in a Durban store that it said had been caused by a limpet-mine of Soviet origin. “The cowardly manner in which the bomb had been planted in a supermarket is evidence of the A.N.C.’s publicly proclaimed tactics of indiscriminately attacking soft targets,” a bureau spokesman said. One of the 18 injured, a white 20-year-old woman, was reported to be in a critical condition. The A.N.C. which has been fighting to topple the white-dominated government since it was outlawed more than 20 years ago, initially restricted its attacks to sabotage of state installations. But it became apparent at the organisation’s last congress that this policy was under pressure in the movement.

Civilians have been victims of several bomb attacks, most notably a carbomb attack that killed 19 people in a Pretoria street in 1983. The bureau spokeman said that yesterday’s ex-

plosion in a busy supermarket in a white work-ing-class suburb had shown that tighter security measures were needed, “especially as far as parcels are concerned.” The bomb went off

shortly after a package was delivered to the supermarket’s parcel counter.

Many shops tightened security after bomb attacks earlier this year, which claimed four lives and injured well over 100.