Mauritania's authorities have seized documents they say were used by Islamic militants in the West African nation to "justify terrorism" and which also give practical tips on staging attacks. The interior minister of the former French colony, where an Islamic fundamentalist group allied to al Qaeda killed 15 soldiers this month, displayed the documents during a news conference on Friday. The papers were seized by security services from members of the Mauritanian arm of the Algerian militant Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), the minister said. "These documents justify terrorism and also give practical instructions on undertaking a certain number of terrorist acts," Interior Minister Lemrabott Sidi Mahmoud Ould Cheik Ahmed said.
| Mauretanians all seem to have really long names — no "Bobs" or "Herbs" to be found. And they're all Ould. The place must be like an ould folks' home... |
"Some (of the documents) relate to blowing up cars, how to make fatal poisons, suicide missions, communication methods, the people to be targeted, embassies, strategic locations, maps of certain neighbouring countries," he said.
| Brief, sternly suppressed vision of bent little ould men, their rheumy eyes rolling with fanaticism, their turbans tending to slide off their slick, hairless domes, blowing up really ould cars... |
Prime Minister Sghair Ould Mbareck was among those listed as potential targets, the minister added.
"Yeah! We gotta take out the prime minister! He's too ould for the job!"
"Eh? What's that, sonny?" |
Authorities in Mauritania, which straddles black and Arab Africa and hopes to begin pumping oil this year, have said the GSPC is recruiting Mauritanians to fight at home and abroad.
| "A broad? I'd love a broad! It's been years since I had one! 'Course, I'm not sure what I'd do with her..." |
A deputy head of the GSPC, Amari Saifi, was sentenced to life in prison in Algeria on Saturday after a court found him guilty in absentia of helping to create a terrorist group. Critics say Mauritania is taking advantage of the U.S.-led "war on terror" to crack down on Islamic opponents.
| They always say that, unless the Islamists actually take over and kill everybody who doesn't agree with them, and then they say that the U.S. should have stopped it, or that it's our fault they're the way they are... |
Although an Islamic Republic, Mauritania's laws ban any party based solely on religion. The country is paradoxically one of the most repressive states in the region towards Islamists, analysts say.
| The writer's missed the difference between "Islamic" and "Islamist." He thinks the two are interchangeable... |
In recent months, Mauritanian authorities have arrested around 50 suspected Islamists, saying they had links to the GSPC, listed by the United States as a terrorist organisation. Authorities said the GSPC was behind an attack on a remote military post this month, in which 15 soldiers were killed.
| So the crackdown's got their domestic Islamists on the run and they had to import some from Algeria. What's that say about the gummint's tactics?... Anyone?... Bueller? |
There have been three coup attempts in Mauritania since June 2003. Some of the dissident soldiers wanted for the bids to oust President Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya are still at large. Many Arabs are angry that Taya, who seized power in a 1984 coup, shifted support from former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to the United States and Israel.
| ... thereby tipping the world balance of power. Is there anything that many Arabs aren't angry about? |
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