Chris Steyn (00:01) A six-year-old girl was critically injured in a school stabbing this morning. Her attacker, a former pupil at the school, is believed to be the same person who planted a homemade bomb at a Ballito mall in March. With me is Willem Els of the Institute for Security Studies and the Security Initiative for Africa.

Willem Els (00:28) Hello Chris.

Chris Steyn (00:29) Willem, please describe the attack. Apparently it took place after he had locked children in a classroom.

Willem Els (00:38) Yes, according to the information, he got over the fence at the back of the school and then he entered the classroom. He locked the door from the inside and then he went on with his attack.

So what seems to have happened is that he was armed with a homemade firearm as well as a knife, a kitchen knife with a blade they say was about six inches long. And apparently he discharged the firearm and it did not function. So there could have been more fatalities there, but then he attacked the little girl.

There were some people on the premises and one man actually proceeded to knock down the door, but he escaped through the back door and he was apprehended on the school premises.

Chris Steyn (01:29) Willem, how was he dressed?

Willem Els (01:32) He was dressed in black and he had a T-shirt with a big word, WRATH, on it. And it resembles, if you look at what happened, and we spoke about it earlier, what he believes in and what he wants to do.

Chris Steyn (01:56) What else was found in his possession when he was finally apprehended?

Willem Els (02:00) They found the knife as well as the homemade firearm with him.

Chris Steyn (02:05) I believe they found gunpowder as well.

Willem Els (02:09) Yes, gunpowder. That is for the homemade firearm; it was very primitive. The gunpowder is actually the propellant that should propel the projectile out of the barrel of the gun, but fortunately it did not function correctly.

Chris Steyn (02:30) Do we know how many times he stabbed the little girl?

Willem Els (02:34) We don't know. There's very little information available at the moment, but what we know is that she is stable in hospital. But it could have been worse.

Chris Steyn (02:47) Those children must be so traumatised.

Willem Els (02:50) Indeed. Children of that age. And it makes you think back to his idols. In the previous interview we spoke about how he idolised the Columbine shooters in America, and that he wanted to do the same in order to cement his name in history, according to his understanding of where he wanted to be a hero. So that is the challenge. We see a lot of similarities, even though we are glad that he was a lone wolf and there were no other perpetrators with the same ideology that he has.

Chris Steyn (03:28) So a homemade gun that didn't discharge, a homemade bomb that didn't detonate, but a knife that he was able to wield. Let's go back to the failed Ballito bomb attack. Why is this person even out there?

Willem Els (03:47) I think there are a lot of questions that need to be asked there: about the conduct of, first of all, the mall, and then the police, and also the parents of this person.

Because what we could gather is that he took this IED that he constructed and placed it near the coffee shops where everybody was having coffee, and he went just outside the danger zone with a knife, waiting for the bomb to detonate. Once it detonated, he was going to wait for the people to run in each direction, where he was going to attack them with a knife.

Fortunately it was a low-order detonation, as we refer to it. If you take your low explosives, like the gunpowder that he had with him now, and you confine it in a pipe, effectively it will detonate. But if you do not, it will just kick off the lid and it will burn and there will be a lot of smoke. And that is what happened in the mall.

Chris Steyn (04:49) Remember that manifesto of his. He was clearly intent on mass killing. Why is he not in an institution or being held in a place where he cannot harm others?

Willem Els (05:03) Indeed, and I think we need to ask those questions high up, and more questions should be asked, because what we gathered is that the police who attended the scene handed the IED back to his parents. That is completely, completely against the law.

And also the fact that no further charges were pursued, including by the mall, because the mall has to safeguard the people who visit there. And if that is how they are going to try to wipe things under the carpet...

We did ask a lot of questions about the integrity of the security at that mall. But also the parents: they sent him to the hospital in Maritzburg [Pietermaritzburg], where I think he stayed for two months, and he was released. But at the end of the day, what was the follow-up on that? How did these parents monitor him after that?

Because clearly we could see that he did not change. He maintained his ideology, and his objectives were still to kill a lot of people and to become famous in his circles by doing so.

Chris Steyn (06:16) We would never have known that he had planted the bomb if it were not for the FBI.

Willem Els (06:26) Exactly, and that is the challenge that we have. We do not have the capacity of the FBI when it comes to monitoring social media. Someone like him is basically a lone wolf. If they don't communicate with people online, it is very difficult to pick up what he or she is going to do next.

So that is normally the giveaway when you monitor the internet, especially the sites where these types of people, or like-minded people, talk. That is where they picked it up, and they alerted the police in that instance. But unfortunately, it seems that we dropped the ball here in South Africa.

Chris Steyn (07:10) And now we've dropped it again.

Willem Els (07:13) Indeed, and it could have been so much worse. The moment it goes to children... if you look at the age of the children that he attacked, he really went for a vulnerable place in our society.

Chris Steyn (07:27) Willem, I take it that he is now in custody.

Willem Els (07:32) Yes, indeed. We hope that they will now follow through with a thorough investigation, and hopefully they will escalate it to the Hawks, where there are a bit more resources to do so.

And from there we would like to see an example being made of how to deal with lone wolf perpetrators, because that is the best deterrent if you want to deter future lone wolves.

Chris Steyn (08:03) Well, his parents obviously knew that he was unstable. What about other parents who have no idea what their children might be going through, or who may be grooming them on the internet, or what radical ideology they have started to embrace? What advice do you have for parents? What should they look out for?

Willem Els (08:24) It's very difficult. We know that with teenagers, some of them are a bit easier than others; some of them go through patches where they start to get rebellious about anything and everything. But as a parent, you know your children. Parents must stay involved. Parents must monitor, especially the traffic, where their children are, because they are vulnerable.

That's the reason why countries like Australia actually banned the internet and social media for children up to 16 years old. It's because that is where most radicalisation takes place, where people from outside can groom them, not only for violence but also, as we saw in the Western Cape, where that person was arrested for grooming young children for photographs and so on. So our children are very vulnerable on the internet, very much so. And as parents, we need to take ownership of that.

Chris Steyn (09:27) Indeed. Thank you. That was Willem Els speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Willem.

Willem Els (09:35) Thank you, Chris.

“Ballito Bomb Boy” stabs 6-year-old girl in school attack - Willem Els