Mauritanian coup was backed by West: Qaeda
Statement calls on Muslims to "prepare for war"
Al-Qaeda said in an Internet statement on Tuesday that coup plotters in Mauritania were most likely backed by the West and urged the Mauritanian people "to prepare for war."
"It is most likely that those who made the recent military coup in Mauritanian would not take a step if it did not receive the approval of the infidels of America, France and Israel," said the statement.
The statement by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was signed by the group's leader Abu Musab Abdul Wudud and dated August 10.
It urged Mauritanian Muslims to rise up.
"The Muslims must be warned of this infidel democracy in all its slogans, because they are tricks and deceptions by the Zionist-Crusader alliance against the people of Islam," said the statement.
"And our message to you, the people of our beloved Mauritanian ... (is) wake up from your slumber. Prepare for war," the statement said.
"There is no choice for the ummah of Islam to restore its stolen rights and its lost glory, but only with jihad for the cause of Allah, fighting the Jews, Christians and the apostate rulers," it added.
Last week a group of generals, led by the former head of the presidential guard General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, ousted Mauritania's first democratically elected president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a bloodless coup.