By Mike Cohen
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, Oct. 7, 1999; 2:41 p.m. EDT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa –– Three members of a South African vigilante group appeared in court this week to face 124 terror-related charges in a case that police are hailing as another breakthrough against urban terrorism.

Last year, there were 68 bombing attacks – including one on the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town and several on police stations – and more than 150 drive-by shootings in the city, police spokesman Vicus Holtzhauzen said.

This year, just six such attacks have been recorded.

Police ascribe the dramatic decline to the arrests of dozens of people in a blitz dubbed Operation Goodhope. Many of those held are members of the Muslim fundamentalist group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs, or PAGAD as it is widely known, and have spent months in custody.

On Wednesday, Ebrahim Jeneker, 29, an alleged PAGAD hit man, went to court along with Abdullah Maansdorf, 22, and his brother Ismail, 19, to face a litany of charges including nine counts of murder.

The case was postponed until February, and the three have been refused bail.

Holtzhauzen said more police officers and better intelligence led to the arrest of militant PAGAD leaders.

The increasingly fragmented group has denied any involvement in the urban terror attacks and says its arrested members' rights are being violated because they have been denied bail for months.

While police hold PAGAD members responsible for most terror attacks in Cape Town, including bombings at Planet Hollywood and several police stations, the violence cannot be simply explained.

Elrena van der Spuy, a lecturer at the University of Cape Town's Institute of Criminology, blames the city's gangs, whose membership is estimated at between 60,000 and 120,000, for some of the violence.

She said it is still too soon to tell if the respite in the violence is permament.

"Some top gang leaders have relocated to other cities or have been killed," Van der Spuy said. "PAGAD appears to be caught up in internal politics and its profile is not what it was last year."

Sean Tait, a project director at the U Managing Conflict monitoring group, agreed that all the terror attacks cannot be linked to PAGAD.

"There may be an overlap of people who are members of PAGAD and are involved in urban terrorism, but that does not mean the whole organization is involved," Tait said.

But he credited improved police intelligence with the decline in terrorist attacks in Cape Town.