NOUAKCHOTT: The Christmas Eve murder of four French tourists in Mauritania has been linked to al-Qai'da's African affiliate. Gunmen shot the tourists as they picnicked on the side of a road near Aleg, a small town 245km east of the capital, Nouakchott, police said. The attackers then fled south towards the Senegalese border. The sole survivor was seriously injured and had been flown to the main hospital in Senegal's capital, Dakar, where he was in intensive care, hospital spokesman Moussa Samb said. French radio station France Info said the man, in his 70s, would be sent to France today and admitted to hospital in Lyon.
By last night, five people had been arrested over the shooting in the normally safe south of the country, including one who last year had been given a suspended two-year prison sentence for belonging to a terrorist group, prosecutors said in a statement. Two of those believed to have fled to Senegal were "young Mauritanians who are suspected of belonging to extremist Salafist groups". Both were arrested last year on suspicion of belonging to the Algeria-based Salafist Group forPreaching and Combat, which has declared allegiance toal-Qa'ida. One of the two was freed without charge, while the second was acquitted of belonging to a terrorist organisation, a decision that prosecutors were appealing against, their statement said. The acquitted man had "taken part in military training outside the country".
The tourists - four male relatives and a male friend - were on a driving trek between Paris and Burkina Faso and were on their way to Mali when they were attacked, the French Foreign Ministry said in Paris. It said the victims included two adult children of an elderly man who was shot in the leg and wounded. His brother and a family friend were also killed. "They were en route to Mali when they were surprised by an armed group comprised of three people who demanded money, without success, before attacking them in a barbaric fashion."