JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- African countries are acting more vigorously to prevent and combat terrorism, but still slowly in the fight against organized crimes such as money laundering, a study among eight African countries has shown.

    The countries that have directly experienced the impact of terrorism, whether domestic or international, were better equipped to deal with it through integrated intelligence gathering and coordinated structures, the study found.

    Algeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa have already established structures to coordinate the activities of security agencies.

    The study was conducted by the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria,Senegal, South Africa and Uganda, with aims to examine drug trafficking, corruption, money laundering and terrorism.

    In general all the countries reviewed have implemented additional intelligence gathering and crime prevention measures tomake sure that suspected terrorists did not have easy access to their territories, said Anneli Botha, an ISS expert on terrorism.

    Africa and the rest of the world were shocked by bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed 250 Africans and injured thousands others.

    Two South Africans are currently in custody in Pakistan following their arrest as terrorist suspects in July. They had reportedly confessed to their interrogators that they had hatched a plot to carry out attacks on Johannesburg's main tourist attractions.

    The study also discovered that organized crimes in Africa tend to precipitate economic and social consequences that are disproportionate to the profits accruing to perpetrators.

    The study examined the countries' specific commitments in respect of drug trafficking and related money laundering, but finding that international obligations to combat money laundering are being adopted slowly, and their implementation is even slower.

    All the countries, except Nigeria and South Africa, regarded money laundering as a derivative offense connected to drug trafficking.

    The consequence is that, in these two countries, the net of criminal responsibility was cast beyond actual participants in drug trafficking, to beneficiaries upstream or downstream outside immediate criminal business circles, said Charles Goredema at the ISS.

    The measures prescribed by international instruments to enhance access to financial information have gradually been extended beyond narcotics offenses to economic offenses generally, corruption, money laundering and, more recently, the funding of terrorist activities, showed the study. Enditem