Qaeda offshoot threatens life of Mauritania president
AQIM says will make new attempt after failed try last week
An Al-Qaeda offshoot in northwestern Africa threatened Monday to kill Mauritania's president for fighting a "proxy war" on behalf of France to stem its growing influence in the region.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said it would make a "new attempt" to kill President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz after a foiled attack last week.
It said it would continue to target Abdel Aziz "as long as the proxy war waged against the Mujahideen on behalf of France continues," in a statement carried by the local ANI news agency
It called on the Mauritanian army to overthrow the head of state, claiming he was "imposing a war on you which is not yours.
Mauritania's army blew up a car packed with explosives last week, preventing what AQIM at the time claimed was an assassination attempt on the president. The French embassy and an army barracks was also targeted, according to some sources.
Meanwhile, France's Cooperation Minister Henri de Raincourt said in Nouakchott that Paris would stand by Mauritania in its fight against AQIM.
"France imposes nothing, France is at the disposal" of Mauritania, "if needs be, if it expresses the desire" de Raincourt said after a meeting with Abdel Aziz.
French forces participated in a joint attack with the Mauritanian army on a militant hideout in neighboring Mali in a failed attempt to free 78-year-old French hostage Michel Germaneau last year.
AQIM said it later executed the man in reprisal for the raid, which killed several of its members.
On Saturday a suspected AQIM member blew himself up in southern Mauritania after security forces cornered him.
A second suspect was captured alive in the incident in the remote Brakna region, near the border with Senegal, they said.
The two were believed to have been among several members of AQIM who entered Mauritania from Mali in three vehicles a week ago with plans to launch attacks in the capital Nouakchott.
Mauritania is among several countries in the Sahara region where al Qaeda-linked fighters have raised their profiles with a series of attacks and kidnappings, and
AQIM grew out of the militant Salafist movement in Algeria and has moved south where it is taking advantage of the vast and lawless desert regions of Mauritania, Mali and Niger.