Mauritanian army foils Qaeda attempt on president

Mauritania's army blew up a car packed with explosives Wednesday, foiling an attack which al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) claimed was aimed at assassinating President Ould Abdel Aziz .

The al-Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility for the attempted attack in a telephone call to an Islamist website, Essirage.net. The caller, who identified himself as a spokesman for al-Qaida's North Africa branch, said they were targeting Aziz whose government has actively pursued members of the terror cell.

Authorities had been tracking the suspicious vehicle and two others since Friday when they entered the country from northern Mali, Col. Mohamed Ould Ahmed told The Associated Press.

The Toyota Land Cruiser carrying more than a ton of explosives was headed for military and government buildings when security forces decided to shoot at it, the colonel said. An enormous explosion rocked the neighborhood of Ryad at about 3 a.m. nearly 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the city center.

Once a peaceful country

"The car was transporting three terrorists trying to infiltrate the capital by launching a kamikaze attack," said the colonel, who added that eight Mauritanian soldiers were wounded.

Once a peaceful nation perched on the edge of the vast Sahara desert, Mauritania has become a staging ground for al-Qaeda's North African franchise, which has bankrolled its operation by kidnapping foreigners for ransom across a wide swath of the Sahel region.

Ahmed said the two suspects who had been arrested Tuesday after they abandoned an SUV full of explosives in the desert were suspected members of the group. Another suspect in the first car got away.

A military source told AFP the car was spotted 12 kilometers (eight miles) from the southern entrance to Nouakchott early on Wednesday morning where it was headed to "carry out attacks."

The army shelled the vehicle, one of three it had been looking for since Saturday after a tip off they had crossed into Mauritania from Mali through the southeast Nema region.

"The three terrorists on board were destroyed by the blast. Their ripped-up bodies are difficult to identify," said the source.

Nine soldiers were injured by flying debris from the explosion which was so strong it was heard in several districts of the capital.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) was quick to claim the foiled attack, and a spokesman told private online Nouakchott News Agency (ANI) the group was targeting the country's president.

"The car bomb which exploded on Tuesday night was part of an operation to assassinate Aziz," the spokesman said, speaking from northern Mali.

However according to the spokesman there were only two occupants in the vehicle and it was they who set off the bomb as the military approached.

Different nationalities

The spokesman said the operation involved "members of different nationalities including two Mauritanians who are veterans in the organization."

He added, "The operation will be authenticated by those who carried it out" in a videotape to be released later.

President Aziz has visited the wounded who are all part of the presidential guard battalion.

On Tuesday the gendarmerie arrested three occupants of a second vehicle carrying explosives that they had intercepted.

Security forces were still searching for the third vehicle, which was believed to be carrying water, gas and video equipment. Ahmed said that they were confident they would find and arrest the three suspects in that car.

On Saturday, a suspect vehicle approached the barracks at Nema, before fleeing after warning shots were fired.

AQMI threat

Mauritania is one of the countries worst affected by AQMI which operates in a massive desert zone spanning Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Nigeria where it carries out attacks, kidnapping of foreigners and trafficking.

In August last year, troops at Nema shot at a suicide bomber as he tried to drive a car packed with explosives at the barracks, sparking a "big explosion" which caused heavy damage, slightly injuring two soldiers.

AQMI claimed responsibility for that attack.

In July last year, Mauritanian troops raided AQMI bases in neighbouring Mali in a bid to foil attacks planned against their barracks.

French troops joined one such operation to try to rescue 78-year-old French hostage Michel Germaneau. Although they killed seven AQMI members in the raid, the group subsequently announced that it had killed Germaneau in revenge.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has its roots in an extremist Islamic group in Algeria that brokered an alliance with the terror network in 2006. Since then, AQIM has kidnapped more than a dozen Europeans including tourists and aid workers, and with each abduction their tactics have become more bold.

They stormed a heavily guarded residential compound in northern Niger late last year, seizing five French hostages and two others. AQIM gunmen also grabbed two Frenchmen from a restaurant in Niger's capital last month, and the men were found dead less than 24 hours later.

In Mauritania, AQIM has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks, including the 2009 killing of 39-year-old American Christopher Ervin Leggett and the 2007 slaying of four French tourists picnicking on the side of a rural road.

Aziz, a military general, led a coup in 2008 and among his critiques of the democratically elected president that he ousted is that he had been soft on terrorism. He was later elected in multiparty elections in which he promised to contain the terror group.