Mauritania's new leader 'warns of terrorist threat'

NOUAKCHOTT — Mauritania's new president warned of an emerging terrorist threat from disenchanted young people in an interview which took place before the suicide bomb attack on the French embassy this weekend.

"There is an emerging terrorism at home," Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz, the ex-coup leader elected on July 18, told the New African magazine to be published Monday.

"Like every country, we have young people who are sometimes led astray, who find themselves sometimes caught in a big net. They are then recruited, trained and sometimes turn against their own country. We must fight this phenomenon, in a joint effort with other partner countries," he said in the interview.

Ould Abdel Aziz was sworn in to office on Wednesday amid growing international concern over the spread of Al-Qaeda linked groups in the sprawling desert nation.

On Saturday night a suicide bomber blew himself up near the French embassy in Nouakchott, injuring three people including two French nationals.

Asked how extremists are able to strike with alarming ease in the very heart of the Mauritanian capital, the new president said: "Terrorism does not only affect Mauritania. It does not recognise borders or nationalities."

The 53-year-old army general has pledged to fight growing militancy in the potentially oil-rich nation with a firm hand.

"It is also necessary to protect our young people by fighting against the poverty, exclusion and misery that can drive them into the arms of the terrorists," he said.

On the issue of anti-terrorist support from United States and European experts, Ould Abdel Aziz said: "We help one another ... we need to have this exchange of ideas, tactics.... We are already doing it."

Back in June an American national, Christopher Leggett, was shot dead in broad daylight in Nouakchott. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the network's north African offshoot, claimed responsibility for the murder.

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