Recently in Mauritania Category

France, they explain, is "hostile to the interests of Islam." Another "defensive jihad" found its excuse. "Radical Islamist group threatens France," from Agence France-Presse, January 3:

Bamako - The Mauritanian Hamada Ould Mohamed Kheirou, presumed leader of an armed Islamist group active in west Africa, has again threatened France with war in a video seen Tuesday by an AFP journalist.

"We again declare war on France, which is hostile to the interests of Islam," Kheirou said in Arabic, wearing dark glasses and with his head wrapped in a turban. "The jihad [holy war] will be exported everywhere it is necessary and for God, we must be ready for anything."

The video also showed images of three Westerners - a Spanish man and woman and an Italian woman - who were kidnapped late in October in a camp for Sahrawi refugees near Tindouf in southern Algeria.

That kidnapping was claimed by Kheirou's Movement for Unity and Justice in West Africa, which then emerged as a breakaway group from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which originated in Algeria and now has bases in northern Mali.

The last part of the video was concerned with the ideology of the group and its ambitions, particularly "to impose shari'ah [Islamic law] across the whole of west Africa." Young black fighters were shown calling for "pure and tough" Islam.

Mauritania last week issued an international arrest warrant against Kheirou, also known as Abou Qumqum. The mandate also targeted three other Mauritanians, including Moustapha Ould Limam Chafi, an influential man in west Africa who has notably negotiated the release of Western hostages by AQIM....

The good news is that this trial balloon isn't flying just yet, though there is plenty that is nowhere near modern or "moderate" about Mauritania, including the persistence of slavery and female genital mutilation (72.2% prevalence as of 2007).

The bad news is that there is nonetheless a push for more enforcement of Sharia. "Mauritanian Salafists demand 'morality police'," by Raby Ould Idoumou for Maghrebia, December 6:

A group of protestors last Friday gathered in mid-town Nouakchott to decry what they called "rampant vice" and "infringement of youths' morals" in Mauritanian society.

Members of a previously unknown movement, called "No to Pornography", urged Mauritanians to join a five-minute protest every week following Friday prayers to make people adhere to the rules of Islamic morality.

"This is clear evidence that we are not doing our legitimate, social and moral responsibility," said demonstrators, who picked al-Shurafaa Mosque as their venue.

They called for shutting down "the dens of vice, brothels and liquor stores" as well as banning porno websites. Movement members also argued for "establishing moral police". They enjoined Muslims women to wear the niqab and traditional Islamic dress in Mauritania called melhafa.

The traditionalists drew their inspiration from the discourse of public mufti and imam of al-Saudi Mosque Ahmed Ould Lemrabet, who in November called for establishing a committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice.

According to Islamic group analyst al-Meshri Ould al-Rabbani, Ould Lemrabet is a controversial figure, who has been "harshly criticised by preaching circles who embrace al-Maliki sect of Islam and Sufi orders for his ideological inclinations to the radical Wahhabi ideology".

The mufti condemned the appointment of women in senior positions and commented that "the best job a woman can do is to take care of her husband", Ould al-Rabbani added.

"These calls might have been made by the Salafist current in Mauritania, as al-Shurafaa Mosque is the first known Salafist venue, and was the place where prayers were performed for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Therefore, it is a place of expression for the Salafists," he told Magharebia.

University professor and history researcher Dr. Mokhtar Ould al-Haj concurred that "the call shows the appearance of Salafism in a new form".

"Extremists are trying to use freedom of expression to pressure the authorities," he said. "However, the conservative Mauritanian society doesn’t usually provide support for such demands that express foreign trends rather than domestic calls for change."

Many students and activists seemed alarmed at the emerging movement.

"This movement may want to drag us backwards; they may want a new Taliban, i.e. women would wear burqa and abaya, and would walk around with a mahrim (an unmarriageable kin)," said Noura Bent Mohamed Salem, 18, who studies English at the University of Nouakchott. "I think that this will be a problem; the society is already sufficiently conservative and we don't need more pressures."

"They can call for drafting legal texts inspired from the Islamic sharia as a source, but the establishment of a committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice is not justified," said Zaineb Bent al-Hadrami, a 20-year old veiled student at the University of Nouakchott. "It's like importing a mainly Saudi security system that would not in way suit the Mauritanian social fabric."...

This would not be the first complaint about "Arabization" from Mauritanians.

Anti-slavery crusaders have great difficulty in some Muslim countries because slavery is rooted in the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example. Muhammad owned slaves, and the Qur’an takes the existence of slavery for granted, even as it enjoins the freeing of slaves under certain circumstances, such as the breaking of an oath: “Allah will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom” (5:89).

But while the freeing of a slave or two here and there is encouraged, the institution itself is never questioned. The Qur’an even gives a man permission to have sexual relations with his slave girls as well as with his wives: “The believers must (eventually) win through, those who humble themselves in their prayers; who avoid vain talk; who are active in deeds of charity; who abstain from sex, except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom their right hands possess, for (in their case) they are free from blame…” (23:1-6). A Muslim is not to have sexual relations with a woman who is married to someone else – except a slave girl: “And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you” (4:24).

Slavery is still practiced more or less openly today in Sudan and Mauritania, and there is evidence that slavery still continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well -- notably Saudi Arabia, which only abolished slavery in 1962, Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970, and Niger, which didn’t abolish slavery until 2004. In Niger, the ban is widely ignored, and according to a Nigerian study, as many as one million people remain in bondage there.

"Mauritania prosecutor seeks prison for slavery activists," from Middle East Online, August 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

NOUAKCHOTT - The Nouakchott public prosecutor on Wednesday called for jail terms to be handed out to nine anti-slavery activists accused of "rebellion".

The nine members of an anti-slavery NGO appeared in court charged with "unauthorised gathering and rebellion", after they organised a sit-in protest against child enslavement.

The accused were arrested on August 4 during their protest in front of a Nouakchott police station against the enslavement of a 10-year-old girl.

They claimed the woman accused of keeping the child as a slave had been freed on the day of the protest, while the child was missing.

Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981 but it continued unabated and a law making enslavement punishable with up to 10 years in prison, introduced in 2007, has not been applied.

Human rights organisation Anti-Slavery International says on its website some 600,000 people are estimated to be enslaved in Mauritania.

In court the prosecutor demanded that eight of the defendants should be jailed for at least two years.

The ninth, accused of assaulting a police officer, deserves a three-year term, the prosecuting team added.

The defence lawyers called for their clients to be freed, saying they were only helping to apply the law by denouncing the enslavement of minors.

"Our clients should, on the contrary, be thanked for helping this crime to be uncovered," one of those lawyers, Mohamed Ould Bilal, said....

Yep.

"You should attack those who attack you, with a force that is equal to or greater than theirs."

But wait...I thought the Jews did it!

And as Zip points out, "every religion has its extremists," or so the dogma goes, but when did you ever hear of a Christian cleric justifying violence against innocent Muslims?

"Egypt: Edict posted to jihadist websites 'legitimises' church attack,'" from AKI, January 3 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Rome, 3 Jan. (AKI) - A religious edict signed by a Mauritanian cleric linked to Al-Qaeda' s late leader in Iraq and posted to jihadist websites appears to legitimise the deadly New Year's Eve attack on a church in northern Egypt. The edict, signed last month by Abu al-Mandhar al-Shanqiti, urges Muslims to avenge the alleged imprisonment in a convent of two Egyptian women after they converted to Islam.

Al-Shanqiti is close to the Jordanian sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the mentor of Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US raid there in 2006.

"How should Sharia (Islamic) law view Coptic priests and Christians who proselytise in our country and kidnap our women?" said al-Shanquiti's message, cited by jihadist website Al-Tawed.

"You should attack those who attack you, with a force that is equal to or greater than theirs."

"The Koran endorses the principle of 'an eye for an eye', a tooth for a tooth."

He claimed jihadist leaders had decided to avenge the alleged kidnapping of the Muslim women, named in unconfirmed reports as Wafa Costantine and Camelia Shehata.

"These Christians who don't hand over Muslims and who have kidnapped those two women have violated the accord under which they are afforded protection. We have no obligations towards them," said al-Shanquit.

He recalled that the Al-Qaeda linked group which claimed the deadly attack on 31 October against a Christian church had in its message called for the release "of prisoners held by the Christian church."...

Slavery is taken for granted in the Qur'an, and is still practiced in many areas of the Islamic world -- here, in Mauritania. And where are the human rights organizations, as these freedom fighters get railroaded?

"Anti-slavery activists face possible charges in Mauritania," from Middle East Online, December 16 (thanks to Twostellas):

NOUAKCHOTT - Seven anti-slavery activists arrested in Mauritania after a protest to highlight the plight of two young girls have been handed over to the public prosecutor's office, officials said on Wednesday.

The seven, arrested on Monday for violent protest, included the leader of the Mauritanian anti-slavery body the Initiative for the Resurgence of Abolitionism Movement Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid.

"Seven of our comrades have been handed over to the legal authorities," said Mohamed Ould Mahmoud of the group. A judicial official confirmed the information.

Ould Mahmoud said the group had told the authorities that their fight against slavery would continue "with or without him (Biram)".

He also said that the head of the group had suffered head and knee injuries in custody and warned that he would hold the authorities responsible for any mistreatment. He did not give any indication of how serious the injuries were.

The authorities have accused the seven, who were demanding the liberation of two girl slaves aged nine and 13, of attacking the security forces, injuring six policemen, and ransacking a police station.

Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981 but it still persists in some parts of the country.

Al-Qaradawi has been praised by establishment dhimmi Islamic scholar John Esposito as a champion of a "reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights."

"Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi Joins Crowds in Jihad Chants at Rally in Mauritania," from MEMRI, November 10 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Following are excerpts from a video clip of a rally in Mauritania attended by Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, which was posted on the Internet on October 2010.

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/267.htm.

Omar Wild Hamadi: "Don't dream of a peaceful solution, forget these dreams.

"In the world, there are eagles and wolves, but no doves.

"Dont dream of a peaceful solution, forget these dreams.

"In the world, there are eagles and wolves, but no doves.

"Rise and leave your home, don't sit idly by. Carry your grenades.

"Leave the seat for the cowards, put down the pens.

"Rise and leave your home, don't sit idly by. Carry your grenades.

"Leave the seat for the cowards, put down the pens.

"You shall write in your precious blood: Long live Islam, long live Islam.

"Don't gaze into your heart, take the path of the heroes.

"Forget your wife, forget your father, forget the children.

"Don't gaze into your heart, take the path of the heroes.

"Forget your wife, forget your father, forget the children.

"God Almighty will protect your child, and the black-eyed virgins call you passionately:

"Come on, come on.

"God Almighty will protect your child, and the black-eyed virgins call you passionately:

"Come on, come on....

This story is now several days old, but the pitch and content of Semman's rhetoric are instructive. Qur'an 9:5 paves the way for open-ended warfare against unbelievers ("wherever you find them"), while apostates from Islam are marked for slaughter according to Muhammad's own command. "Mauritanian jihadist threatens attacks against France," from Agence France-Presse, October 20:

NOUAKCHOTT--The leader of an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group on trial in Mauritania used a court appearance on Wednesday to threaten attacks against France and its interests in the northwest African country.

"I want here to promise them, black nights are awaiting France and (President Nicolas) Sarkozy," Khadim Ould Semman, the leader of the Ansarou Allah (Supporters of God) organization, told the court in the Mauritanian capital.

Ould Semman is one of 19 suspected members of the group being tried for the 2008 murder of a policeman. His group is linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the north African wing of the terrorist network.

The militant singled out France among the "infidels and apostates" who would be physically liquidated in Mauritania by Islamic fighters.

Prosecutors are seeking the death sentence for Ould Semman, who exploited media coverage of a spiritual dialogue in Mauritania's prisons at the beginning of this year by being filmed wearing a tee-shirt on which Al-Qaeda was written.

"I am a mujahideen. I have spent my life on this mission and ask the court to give me the death sentence and cut me into small pieces. This will increase my reward in the after-life," he said....

A welcome show of spine. "France and Mauritania raid Al-Qaeda kidnap gang," from AFP, July 23 (thanks to Maxwell):

NOUAKCHOTT -- French-backed Mauritanian forces attacked and killed six members of an Al-Qaeda affiliated gang allegedly holding a French hostage in the North African desert, officials said Friday.

The French defence ministry said the group was refusing to negotiate the release of a 78-year-old French aid worker kidnapped four months ago, and had been responsible for the murder of a British hostage last year.

Asked about the raid -- which some French and Spanish media portrayed as a failed hostage rescue bid -- President Nicolas Sarkozy refused to comment.

There was no word on the fate of the French captive, who does not appear to have been present when Thursday's pre-dawn assault was launched, and Mauritania said that the operation was not intended as a rescue....

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is the North African affiliate of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's loose network of Islamist groups.

In Paris, the defence ministry confirmed "that the French military provided technical and logistical support to a Mauritanian operation designed to thwart an attack on Mauritania by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb."....

As Hugh Fitzgerald has often noted here, Islam is a vehicle for Arab supremacism. The centrality given to Arabic, such that prayers cannot be offered and the Qur'an not properly recited in any other language, has led historically to clashes between Arab and non-Arab Muslims, with the former having a decided sense of superiority. "Negro-Mauritanians complain about complete 'Arabisation,'" from Middle East Online, April 26 (thanks to Twostellas):

NOUAKCHOTT - Mauritania's ruling Coalition of Parties of the Majority (CPM) has accused the opposition of whipping up ethnic tension after violent clashes between Moor and non-Moorish students.

CPM president Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed on Sunday night told journalists that he condemned "a desperate attempt by some opposition parties who falsely interpret government declarations, to revive matters of ethnic allegiance."...

On April 15, Moorish students clashed at Nouakchott university with Negro-Mauritanian students who were protesting over what they described as the "complete Arabisation of the administration" in Mauritania, a mainly desert nation where the Moors historically ruled over black African southerners.

A student who asked not to be named said that several people were injured by hurled stones.

Police stormed the campus and made about 30 arrests from the rival sides, a security source said. They used their batons and tear gas to break up the clashes.

The violence followed a series of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations about the language of the administration.

French-speaking students and opposition members, mainly Negro-Mauritanians, object to what they see as their exclusion from jobs, while Arabic speakers protest at the place given to French in the educational system and in the administration.

The polemic erupted after Mauritania on March 1 celebrated the day of the Arabic language, when Prime Minister Moulaye Ould Mohemd Laghdaf stated that the civilisation of the country was "Arabo-Islamic."

Two weeks later, Minister of Superior Education Ahmed Ould Bahya tried to calm the situation down by declaring that "no option for a complete Arabisation" has been undertaken by the government....

They can do this sort of thing with impunity, because one thing they can be sure of is that the Europeans will never stop giving the aid. "Al-Qaeda 'took French and Spanish hostages in Africa,'" from the BBC, December 8 (thanks to Twostellas):

An offshoot of the al-Qaeda network has reportedly said its members kidnapped three Spanish aid workers in Mauritania and a Frenchman in Mali last month.

A spokesman for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb made the claim in an audio recording to the al-Jazeera TV station.

There has been no sighting of the four Europeans since the kidnappings, which took place within days of each other.

The same group is believed to be behind the murder of British hostage Edwin Dyer in June.

Pierre Camatte, 61, was taken from his hotel by gunmen in Menaka in Mali on 25 November, while Albert Vilalta, 35, Roque Pascual, 50, and Alicia Gamez, 35, were snatched from an aid convey near Mauritania's northern city of Nouadhibou on 29 November....

In the audio recording, al-Qaeda spokesman Saleh Abu Mohammad said his organisation had "managed to kidnap four Europeans in two distinct operations".

He added that the group would contact France and Spain at a later date with its demands, but gave no further details about what these were, AFP reported....

The UK recently warned its nationals not to visit northern Mali because of the threat of attack by the North African branch of al-Qaeda.

There goes my spring vacation.

In June this year an American teacher was killed in Mauritania, with al-Qaeda later claiming it had killed him for spreading Christianity in the Islamic state.

"Terrorists in Iraq seen from Africa," from UPI, :

Military officials say close to a quarter of foreign fighters captured in Iraq come from northern Africa, validating fears that ungoverned swaths of the continent are serving as both a pipeline and safe haven for Islamist radicals.

According to a June 17 statement from a U.S. military official, a significant number of the Iraqi recruits are said to have joined Abu Musab Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq network. Zarqawi is the Jordanian militant believed responsible for many attacks that have left hundreds of Iraqis dead in past months.

"The potential does exist for [African] individuals or groups to go to Iraq and either conduct operations or receive some of the training," said Maj. Gen. Thomas Csrnko, head of U.S. special operations command in Europe (EUCOM), whose security oversight includes North and West Africa.

While a stream of African jihadists continue to provide manpower and financial support, Gen. Csrnko said many veterans could return to northern Africa to use insurgent tactics developed in Iraq, from bomb-making to strategic planning, against their governments....

Al Qaeda in Iraq issued a statement on its Web site congratulating the mujahedeen "who are fighting the converters in Mauritania."

From our Stop the Presses Department and UPI, "Analysis: W. Africa may be terror hotbed"

Washington, DC -- A newly declassified Canadian intelligence report warns that West Africa is breeding a militant Islamist threat with "significant potential" for growth for groups such as Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service brief, which was obtained by United Press International, says religious and ethnic divisions coupled with state corruption and severe poverty in parts of West Africa provide fertile grounds for al-Qaida and affiliated groups to recruit supporters and plot attacks on Western interests...

Last week, seven men alleged to be members of Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat, an Algeria-born movement with links to al-Qaida were charged by a Mauritanian court for plotting acts of terror.

The group, known by the initials GSPC, was identified as an "immediate concern" in the CSIS brief. It is estimated to have 300 fighters in the region, is on U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist groups, and is charged with kidnapping dozens of European tourists in the Sahara desert.

Experts say, however, local authoritarian regimes that continue to denounce Islamic political groups as terrorists in order to stifle opposition may increase sympathy for the movements. They say the Mauritanian government of President Maaouya Ould Taya is not alone in inflating the domestic terror threat as a pretext to repress socio-political freedoms in a manner that could foment radicalism.

I see, opposing them just makes the situation worse. I guess we should just do nothing and hope this little terrorism problem goes away on its own.

West Africa, as we have often noted here, is increasingly becoming a safe haven for radical Muslims. From the Washington Post, :

With the end of the brutal conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, West Africa is seldom in the news or on the policy agenda these days. Yet the region is quietly gaining recognition as what it has long been: a haven for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Weak and corrupt governments, vast, virtually stateless stretches awash in weapons, and impoverished, largely Muslim populations make the region an ideal sanctuary.

U.S. Gen. Charles Wald, deputy commander of the European Central Command, has been warning Congress and the Pentagon for months that al Qaeda-affiliated groups are active in Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger. The trade in diamonds used by terrorist groups, begun under the protection of former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, continues despite international efforts to curb it. "The terrorist activity in this area is not going to go away," Wald warned recently. "This could affect your kids and your grandchildren in a huge way. If we don't do something about it, we are going to have a real problem on our hands."

More on the African jihad. From AP, :

Squeezed out of sanctuaries elsewhere in the world, al-Qaida may be looking to the deserts and jungles of Africa as a haven where terrorists could train recruits and plan new attacks, the deputy head of U.S. forces in Europe said Friday.

Key among U.S. military proposals to fight back is deploying American units of about 200 soldiers to train armies throughout the continent, patrol alongside them, or hunt terrorists on short notice if necessary.

"Some people compare it to draining a swamp," Air Force Gen. Charles Wald told the Associated Press, eyeing a map of Africa in his office in Stuttgart. "We need to drain the swamp."

Wald said some terrorists had been sent to Iraq from North Africa, and there were indications that al-Qaida has established a presence and tried to recruit in North Africa over the past two years.

Mauritania and Nigeria are among West African nations alleged by some Western think tanks to have al-Qaida cells and top al-Qaida figures came from Mauritania. The country's government has cracked down on Muslim extremism and tried to stop recruiting of fighters for Saddam Hussein's cause in Iraq.

"They're there for a purpose, whether it's looking for real-estate, or recruiting or looking for arms, whatever it is, we know there's a presence," Wald said. "It may be small but it's a bad indicator."

Africa is an ideal location, with its remote deserts and jungles and centuries-old Arab-African Saharan trade route. Governments are weak and poorly paid authorities are easily bribed. Communications are slow and in some places don't exist.

African armies, relatively small and poorly equipped, have difficulty monitoring the vast territories they are supposed to control, Wald said.

"It's an area we think is becoming appealing potentially for terrorist organizations or individuals to operate with semi-impunity," Wald said. "It has a lot of expanses of open area that are conducive to terrorist operations or sanctuary."

The European Command covers 93 countries from Russia to Syria, and all of Africa except the northeast. It is awaiting a decision from Washington on its proposals for a major reconfiguration of forces for the war on terror.

Critics say the European Command, traditionally focused on Europe, is not well-equipped to pay closer attention to Africa. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative U.S. think tank, is pushing for the U.S.-based Central Command to take over responsibility for the entire continent.