Senior police and government officials told AFP on Monday that government offices had been evacuated and the prime minister and King Letsie III cancelled public engagements Sunday amid intelligence suggesting a plot.
Assistant Police Commissioner Sello Mosili was quoted as saying that a team of perhaps 14 Nigerian and Ghanaian soldiers-for-hire reportedly entered Lesotho through a rugged, mountainous southeastern border area with South Africa.
“That’s information that we’ve heard from local people in the mountains,” Mosili said adding. “It’s still under investigation.”
Thesele Maseribane, the third leader of the ruling tripartite coalition, said his armed South African guards evacuated from his office on Friday, following the receipt of intelligence that mercenaries were on their way to kill him.
He told AFP on Monday: “It’s not about security for me or for the prime minister, but about the security of the nation. Are my people secured? My answer is, no.”
He said the mercenaries were not only targeting certain politicians but seeking to undermine elections planned for February 2015.
Maseribane, who says he’s now under even heavier South African police protection, pointed the blame at certain opposition politicians, accused of corruption, who ruled for 14 years before Lesotho’s landmark 2012 elections saw a peaceful handover of power.
A military offensive in the country led by Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli had on August 30 raided Thabane’s official residence, forcing him to flee into South Africa.
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