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| Africa: North |
| GSPC launched Mauritania attack to regain clout with al-Qaeda |
| 2005-06-08 |
| The Algerian extremist formation, the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), has reportedly been isolated by the cells of al-Qaeda abroad because of the high number of defections from its ranks, according to Algerian anti-terrorism experts quoted by al-Hayat. The analysis in the pan-Arab daily suggests that the Algerian terorrist group decided to take responsibility for the attack against a detachment of the Mauritanian army last Saturday in order to try to breach this isolation. Sources of the ministry of defence in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott believe the attack, in which 17 soldiers were killed, was the work of Mauritanian and Mali extremists, linked to a few GSPC and smugglers operating along the borders between Algeria, Mali and Mauritania. Despite this, al-Hayat notes, the Algerian GSPC wanted to claim the paternity of the attack through an official statement released in recent days, to gain credibility in the eyes of the al-Qaeda network. "The mujahadeen of the GSPC carried out an operation that is the first of its kind: an attack on the apostate and traitorous Mauritanian army on 3 June 2005," the group said in a statement posted on its own website. The discrepancies between the two terror formations are said to have beguan in April when Tunisian police arrested ten alleged terrorists who were heading to the Algerian mountains to join guerilla training camps. The ten were reportedly preparing a major attack against the capital Tunis, but Tunisian police managed to uncover the cell as a result of informants within the Algerian Salafite group. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |