Al-Qaeda affiliate claims responsibility for Mauritania attack on Israeli embassy
Shooting targeting embassy in Nouakchott said to be retaliation for Israel's policies in Gaza, proclaims al-Jazeera, citing statement purportedly from ' al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa,' an affiliate of bin-Laden's global network
An al-Qaeda affiliate purportedly claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania's capital, saying it had carried out the assault in response to Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip, an Arab television station reported Saturday.
At least one gunman opened fire on the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania early Friday, setting off a gunbattle with guards that wounded three bystanders, including three French citizens who had apparently been visiting a disco and restaurant adjacent to the embassy compound. Guards at the embassy returned fire, but no embassy staff were wounded.
The Arab satellite TV station al-Jazeera said that al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa, an affiliate of Osama bin Laden's global terror network, issued a statement saying it had carried out the attack Friday morning as a reprisal against Israel's policies in the Gaza Strip.
It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.
Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, is based in Algeria and has claimed responsibility for near-simultaneous bombings at UN offices in Algiers and a government building on Dec. 11 that killed at least 37 people. The same group also purportedly said in an audiotape that it carried out the killing of several soldiers in Mauritania in December.
Mauritania has had relatively few incidents of terrorism in recent years, but on Christmas Eve, gunmen killed four French tourists as they picnicked on the side of a road - an attack the government blamed on a terror sleeper cell affiliated with al-Qaeda. The killings led the French organizers of the famous Dakar Rally to cancel the long-standing trans-Saharan race, which would have traversed this desert nation last month.
One year ago, a ranking al-Qaeda leader released a videotape calling for an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania, according to a transcript provided by Ben Venzke, who heads US-based IntelCenter.
Israel has had diplomatic relations with Mauritania since 1999, but some residents resent the Israeli presence in the overwhelmingly Islamic nation.
