 Al Qaeda is recruiting and training Mauritanian youths via an Algerian fundamentalist group to fight alongside insurgents in Iraq, police and a government official in the West African country said. A police statement published in a government newspaper on Tuesday said the Algerian-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) trained the youths at camps in Mali and Algeria for attacks at home or to fight abroad. A government minister in the Islamic republic said on Wednesday Iraq was one destination, along with Afghanistan, Chechnya and the Palestinian territories. "Some of those elements have gone to Iraq," the minister, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
| "No one will be able to pick them out of a crowd there, will they? And their accents will blend right in..." |
Mauritanian police have arrested scores of Islamist opposition leaders and activists since last month, accusing them of colluding with the GSPC, an al Qaeda ally substantially weakened by the Algerian military over the past few years. One local human rights group has put the number of detainees at around 50. Seven young militants were charged on Monday with establishing a criminal association and could face up to 20 years in prison, state prosecutor Mohamed Ould Bakar said. Their lawyer, Ikebrou ould Mohamed, said the prosecution alleges the youths underwent eight months of training at GSPC camps in Mali and Algeria to fight in Iraq. Critics of Mauritanian President Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya say he is exaggerating the Islamist threat in his country to win more assistance from Western donors, particularly the United States -- which fears West Africa could become a breeding ground for Islamic fundamentalism. The police statement said Islamist activists were responsible for attacking and stealing weapons from a paramilitary police station in the southern town of Aioun, near Mauritania's border with Mali, last month. It said al Qaeda had used large amounts of money to finance religious leaders and mosques in the country to spread its message. |