The recent xenophobic violence had been deliberately unleashed and orchestrated ahead of next year's general election, the director general of the National Intelligence Agency, Manala Manzini, said on Thursday.

He was speaking to African intelligence heads at a conference in Cape Town.

He said though the media had defined the violence as xenophobic, the problem was more complex than that, because South Africans of Tsonga and Venda descent had also been targeted.

"We believe that as South Africa prepares for another national election early next year, the so called black-on-black violence that we witnessed prior to our first election in 1994 has deliberately been unleashed and orchestrated.

Sapa