Jihadists, that is. An update on this story. “Mauritanian authorities hunt for three suspected Islamists,” from Agence France-Presse:
NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) – Law-and-order forces in Mauritania are searching for three more suspected Islamists whose pictures are plastered around the city, a security source said Saturday.
The names of the suspects — Taghi Ould Youssef, Abderrahmane Ould Mohamed El-Hussein and Moctar Ould Sidi — are included on the photos, along with a hotline number for tips leading to their arrest.
Meanwhile authorities continue to scour for the whereabouts of two other alleged Islamists who escaped during a shootout with police Monday night.
The escapees include Sidi Ould Sidna, one of the suspected assassins of two French tourists in December.
Another Islamist who was seriously wounded in the shootout died Saturday afternoon, a hospital source said.
“We’re awaiting his parents to deliver the body,” the source said of the man previously identified by a security official as an expert in explosives who was trained by an Algerian-based group linked to Al-Qaeda.
The source said the man was likely Abou Mouadh, a Salafist acquitted in 2007.
The former Salafist Group for preaching and Combat (GSPC) has since morphed into Al-Qaeda’s north African branch, which officials believe has a presence in Mauritania.
The man’s death brings to three — two suspected Islamists and one police officer — the number killed in Monday’s shootout.
Authorities have televised photos of the latest Islamist suspects with a public warning by the state prosecutor that anyone harbouring “runaway terrorists” would be heavily punished.
It is unclear what the latest three are suspected of, but a security official said Thursday’s arrest of Maarouf Ould Haiba, one of the three suspected killers of the French tourists, had “accelerated things.”
Meanwhile on Friday, police uncovered a stash of hidden explosives in a posh part of Nouakchott.
Twice the size of France but with only three million inhabitants, Mauritania was not previously regarded as a haven for extremism.
But it has been the target of three Al-Qaeda attacks since December, which left four French tourists and three Mauritanian soldiers dead and forced the cancellation of the 2008 Dakar Rally.