The 8 January attack on the Togo national football team in the Angolan exclave of Cabinda, which left three dead and eight injured, has reverberated around the world with many sectors of the international media questioning the level of risk attached to the FIFA 2010 World Cup that kicks off in South Africa on 11 June this year.

In light of these issues, Pasco Risk Management, which has extensive experience in stadium and event security, considers the potential impact of the Cabinda attack on security risks associated with the FIFA 2010 showpiece.

George Nicholls, Pasco's CEO, who has been involved in evaluating and managing security and terrorist risks for more than 15 years, believes that it is important to avoid making any direct connections between the Cabinda incident and security risks connected with the 2010 showpiece in South Africa. “Cabinda serves as a reminder that in today's world any event is potentially at risk of disruption by extremist elements”, he comments, “but there is little or no reason to suggest that the risks associated with FIFA 2010 are any higher because of it”. In support of this assessment, Nicholls points to the following elements:

• The attack appears to have been carried out by a local insurgent group with no known associations to fundamental terror organisations;

• The attack took place in an area that should, Nicholls believes, have been a 'no go' area for the movement of teams; and

• Security preparations for FIFA 2010 are “substantially” greater than those currently in place for the African Cup event.

Based on information currently available, the Cabinda attack was carried out by elements linked to a local separatist group, FLEC (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda). FLEC has been engaged in a low-intensity guerrilla warfare campaign against the Angolan authorities for more than 40 years, having emerged in the early 1960s and going through various phases of organisation and disorganisation since then. “We suspect that the attack against the Togo team was carried out either by FLEC-FAC, a breakaway faction of FLEC that has rejected settlement offers from the Angolan government, or FLEC-PM, a relatively new splinter group that has committed itself to an armed campaign”. Nicholls comments. A press release purporting to come from FLEC-PM was issued to a French radio station shortly after the attack, claiming responsibility for the incident and threatening more attacks. But, as Nicholls notes, in situations such as these groups that claim responsibility are not always those actually responsible for the acts. It is, however, a reasonable deduction that the attack was carried out by insurgents allied to one or other FLEC faction.

Citing credible but client-confidential reports, Nicholls points out that FLEC had in fact threatened to disrupt African Cup matches scheduled to be played in Cabinda, and Angolan authorities had deployed regular and special forces to the region to bolster security. While the attack against the bus carrying the Togo team points to a lapse in security planning and implementation, Nicholls believes that caution should be applied to analysis of the attack until all of the facts are established. “At this stage, one cannot rule a scenario that the attack was aimed against Angolan security forces and that the Togo team bus was not the primary target”, he states, pointing to the fact that most of FLEC's armed activities have been directed at Angolan military personnel and targets.

Either way, Nicholls questions whether the Togo team should have been transported by road in a region that is considered to be extremely high risk. TravelSafe, the travel risk management division of Pasco, provides protective intelligence services to corporates operating in hostile and high-risk environments, and much of the border region between the two Congos and Cabinda is rated by TravelSafe as being an 'extreme risk' area where travel by road should be avoided if possible. “Both insurgent groups and bandit gangs are known to operate astride the main routes between the two Congos and Cabinda”, Nicholls states. He adds that “it isn't so much an issue of simply providing additional security escorts in these areas. Best practice methods of protecting potential targets, such as sports teams, avoid or minimize the risks by selecting alternative routes and means of travel”. Quite simply, the Togo team should ideally not have been on the road in that area to begin with, but should have transported by air.

Nicholls insists that the Cabinda attack poses no direct or immediate threat to FIFA2010. “The statements and reactions in some sectors of the foreign media reflect a lack of understanding of geo-political risk in Africa”, he comments. Cabinda is an exclave of Angola, situated more than 2,000 kilometers from South Africa, with no direct border contact. Cabinda has been a decades long seat of regional tension that heightens around events that will attract international attention, such as general elections and sporting tournaments. Not only do insurgent groups operating in Cabinda have no known operational connections to South Africa, but the sophistication, level and depth of security measures in place around FIFA 2010 is world's apart to security for the Africa Cup event. “One can never say definitively that there will not be an incident”. Nicholls states, “but realistically considered the risks are significantly lower than those associated with Cabinda. Also, it should be noted that risks at venues in Angola itself are considerably lower than those in Cabinda”.