News24 reports that police stations across the country, especially those with arms storage facilities, have been placed on high alert following intelligence that "instigators" may be planning to attack, with the intention of stealing guns, ammunition and other weapons.

On Sunday, as the country was beginning to count the cost and extent of the damage in the wake of last week's looting and unrest which swept across Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, police top brass warned police stations to step up their security. The warning followed intelligence that people suspected of instigating and triggering the unrest, which claimed more than 270 lives, may be planning to disarm police stations across KwaZulu-Natal. A memorandum, authored by policing deputy national commissioner Fannie Masemola, warned that, while the threat may be specific to KwaZulu-Natal, it could spread to other provinces. The memorandum indicated that the police received the intelligence from the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (NICOC) on Sunday. The intelligence was apparently gathered by a team set up by the NICOC to investigate the unrest, comprising members of the police and its Crime Intelligence (CI) unit, the military's Defence Intelligence (DI), and the State Security Agency (SSA). While the sources refused to divulge names, the list of possible instigators include senior ANC politicians believed to be members of the party's Radical Economic Transformation (RET) faction, former Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) veterans, and rogue intelligence agents.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sipho Masondo at News24 (paywall access only)

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