Country Reports on Terrorism 2008 - Mauritania

Al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) represented the primary terrorist threat to Mauritania. After two fatal attacks in late December 2007, AQIM significantly increased its level of activity and severity of attacks. In 2008:

• On February 1, six gunmen attacked the Israeli embassy and an adjacent nightclub in Nouakchott. No one was killed, but three foreigners were injured. AQIM claimed responsibility for the attack, and all of the perpetrators were later arrested by Mauritanian security forces.

• In April, one of the suspects in an attack on French tourists in December 2007 escaped from the main Nouakchott courthouse. This led to an intensive manhunt that culminated in a pitched gun battle between Mauritanian security forces and several suspected terrorists holed up in a house. A police inspector and two suspects were killed in the shootout, and several were wounded. The remaining suspects managed to escape, though several were later arrested, including the suspect who had escaped from the courthouse. Based on these arrests and other ongoing investigations, Mauritanian security forces discovered a villa in Nouakchott stocked with weapons and explosives.

• On September 15, an ambush on a military convoy near the remote northern village of Tourine resulted in the deaths of 11 soldiers and a civilian guide. The attack was particularly gruesome, with the attackers decapitating the soldiers and mining their bodies with explosives. AQIM claimed responsibility for the attack.

On August 6, General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz's bloodless coup against democratically-elected President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi resulted in U.S. government suspension of all non-humanitarian assistance, including most military cooperation and counterterrorism training to the junta-led Mauritanian government.

The lawless eastern and northern regions of Mauritania were a haven for smugglers and terrorists. The porous borders with Algeria, Mali, and Western Sahara posed ongoing challenges for the ill-equipped and poorly funded Mauritanian security services. A new counterterrorism force that received U.S. government training and assistance before the coup was rushed into deployment in October, in an attempt to bolster Mauritania's northern defenses in the wake of the Tourine attack. This new counterterrorism force was untested in combat at year's end.

The Mauritanian government arrested approximately 90 terrorist suspects during 2007 and 2008 combined. Approximately 60 of these suspects were arrested in April 2008 during the massive manhunt for the escaped suspect in the attack on French tourists. All suspects from that attack were arrested or rearrested, and remained in custody at year's end.