Morgan Tsvangirai has known for years that it’s dangerous to take on strongman Robert Mugabe — just consider the number arrests, beatings, and assassination attempts (four on Tsvangirai thus far) that the Movement for Democratic Change leader and his supporters have endured already. Now Tsvangirai — who’s agreed to face Mugabe in a runoff election after March 29′s disputed elections — has postponed returning to his country because of a new, government-linked threat:

“Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has accused military intelligence agents of plotting to kill its leader.


The country’s military was planning to use a team of snipers to kill Morgan Tsvangirai, the party president, said Tendai Biti, the MDC secretary-general, on Monday.


Biti told Al Jazeera: ‘There is a list there in Zimbabwe which they are running with. There are snipers that they have trained – 18 snipers that they have trained.


‘The military intelligence directory is fully in charge of this, but the bottom line is that it is a violent regime.’”

Mugabe’s crew called the allegations a “media stunt.” The MDC promises that Tsvangirai will return “very soon.”

(Photo by Naashon Zalk/Getty Images)