[MAGHAREBIA] Algerian counter-terrorism forces, tasked with making the southern border with Mali and Mauritania secure, recently killed seven gunnies trying to enter Mauritanian from the Algerian region of Bordj Baji Moktar.Two combat helicopters from the 6th region of Tamanrasset were used to chase and kill the gunnies on Saturday night (August 31st), according to the Algerian daily El Mihwar.
Algerian security forces seized two 4x4 vehicles registered in Libya, as well as Kalashnikov-type weapons, RPGs and a large quantity of ammunition.
"The gunnies were trying to cross the border into southern Mauritania, where training camps run by salafist groups are located," the newspaper stated.
Mauritanian authorities, however, deny the existence of terrorist training groups within the country.
"Over the past few years, the Mauritanian armed forces have put a great deal of energy into taking on terrorist groups, which even had cells in the capital," analyst Abdou Ould Mohamed said. "But after the army intervened in July 2011, the jihadists finally withdrew from the east of the country and even from the Wagadou Forest, one of their bases, in Mali."
Ould Mohamed noted, however, "they were still present in northern Mali, where most of the training camps have been destroyed".
"Though historically linked with Algeria, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is increasingly recruiting in sub-Saharan Africa," journalist Jidou Ould Sidi said.
"It also has ties with the Nigerian Islamist movement Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
"This Africanisation of al-Qaeda is accompanied by the growing power of political Islam and the expanding influence of Wahhabi imams, even though these religious men should not be confused with Islamist fighters," he added.
The situation "created by the occupation of a territory in northern Mali by terrorist groups is unbearable, inadmissible and unacceptable, not only for Mali, but for all countries inside and outside the region, and for all those who could be hit by terrorism one day", journalist Chouhoud Abdellahi Ould Moktar said.
"Several months of war in Libya followed by the collapse of the Qadaffy regime after it had been in power for 42 years radically changed the situation for the fragile states in the Sahel strip," he added. "But the Libyan crisis appears to have given a new lease of life to the jihadists, who have acquired new weapons from Libyan combatants."
In addition, the hundreds of Touareg fighters "who had pledged allegiance to Qadaffy are now returning to Mali and Niger, making the security situation even worse", according to Ould Moktar.
In the face of the jihadists' retreat, Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
, Niger and Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
recently announced that they have taken measures to secure their borders with Mali, researcher Ba Sidi noted.
Ever since the outbreak of the crisis in Mali, border security has been a priority for the five countries that surround it.
By closing their borders, or at least reducing the numbers of people crossing them, these countries hope to reduce cross-border travel and traffic, Ba Sidi added.
"But the terrorist attack on the Algerian In Amenas gas complex demonstrated the bitter reality that it was difficult to keep watch over thousands of kilometres of desert," he added. "In each of the countries that neighbour Mali, jihadist elements, which are difficult to identify, can blend in with the refugees who are flocking to the camps."