U.S to help Mauritania confront al-Qaeda threat

By Ibrahima Sylla

NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - U.S. marines will train Mauritania's military in counter-insurgency tactics this month as the Islamic state straddling the Sahara confronts what diplomats see as an increased threat from al Qaeda.

Next week's arrival of the U.S. military instructors falls under Washington's Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP), which seeks to help African armies bolster their defences against possible Islamic militant violence.

Although already scheduled, the American military training mission comes just three weeks after two attacks in Mauritania -- one killing four French tourists, another Mauritanian soldiers -- attributed to al Qaeda members.

The December killings shocked the normally peaceful Muslim republic and set off alarm bells among foreign security agencies about the risk that al Qaeda's North African branch is extending its operations further south into western sub-Saharan Africa.

"If the Mauritanian government says it needs help in this capacity, you will probably see a receptive attitude from most of the West," one Nouakchott-based Western diplomat said.

A suspected al Qaeda cell killed four picnicking French tourists in a Christmas Eve attack in southeast Mauritania. Two of the suspects were arrested this month in Guinea-Bissau and told police they belonged to al Qaeda, raising fears of a regional network that could be linked to drug trafficking.

Also in late December, al Qaeda's North African branch claimed the killing of four soldiers in Mauritania's northeast.

The U.S. marines will train Mauritanian Camel Corps soldiers who patrol this northeast desert quadrant bordering Algeria, the Western Sahara and Mali, an area of past militant attacks.