You’re right, no terrorist organisation would risk the backlash of popular outrage if they attacked the World Cup.
But what about some nutter?
In February a middle aged white guy committed suicide by flying his private plane into a government biulding in the States. He was p**sed off about his taxes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_plane_crash

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2859730/Plane-suicide-attack-on-tax-office.html

How do you stop a madman in his own private aircraft?
And it doesn’t even have to be a mad private pilot in his own plane… he could charter a plane and highjack it. The US views this scenario very seriuosly.

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/478-155.aspx

There is no shortage of owner-pilot private aircraft in SA. Many farmers have them to get to town and back.
Imagine this scenario: a mentally unbalanced white farmer blames his financial woes on the new SA government, what realy tipped him over was the recent murder of white-supremist Eugene Terblanche by black farm workers, he reckons he can go out in a blaze of glory and damage the reputation of the government when the whole world has its eyes on SA by crashing his private plane into a stadium.
Pretty scary, huh?
The lone madman is the most most difficult to stop.
I’ve been thinking about how to prevent something like this and all I can comen up with is a total ban on civilian traffic in a 50km radius of any stadium. Even then the reaction time neaded to enforce this would preclude any Gripen scrambling from a base 500km north of Johannesburg.
The only option is Short Range Air Defence (SHORAD) units stationed near each stadium.
And then there is the risk of an accidntal shoot-down……
I don’t envy the guy whose job it is to protect SA airspace for the next few weeks.

Thanks. I’ve heard of the French adaptations in Algeria, good thinking from the troops in the field.
All the early ‘gunship’ choppers I’ve seen are essentialy field modifications… strapping weapons wherever they can find a place. This one looks like some serious design effort went into it, and I was suprised at the excellent workmanship.
Could it be that the Finns did the mod themselves? Or did they buy it like that straight from the USSR?
You’re right about how do you define a gunship… that’s a difficult one….
Any suggestions?