'Al-Qaida-link' three escape from jail
Three prisoners accused of belonging to an al-Qaida-linked Algerian militant group today escaped from a jail in Mauritania’s capital, officials said.
The three men were imprisoned on suspicions of membership in the Salafist Group for Call and Combat group, which has launched attacks inside Mauritania. They escaped from a prison in Nouakchott, said top justice official Limam Ould Teguedi.
An investigation has been launched into the circumstances surrounding their escape, he said.
Police spokesman Mohamed Lemnie said the three were imprisoned in April 2005 by the regime of ousted ex-President Maaouya Sid’Ahmed Ould Taya, who jailed many political opponents on what Mauritanians felt were trumped-up terrorism charges.
Mauritania’s new leader, Col Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, released dozens of those prisoners after taking power in a bloodless August coup, but kept about two dozen suspected militants behind bars, including the three that fled today.
On June 4, a guerrilla raid on a remote army post in northern Mauritania left 15 soldiers and nine attackers dead.
Algeria’s Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which is on the US list of terrorist organisations and has vowed fealty to al Qaida, purportedly claimed responsibility for the raid in an internet statement.
Some of those jailed by Taya’s regime were accused of setting up local terror networks whose supporters allegedly trained with the Salafists, who favour a strict Islamic state in Mauritania’s northern neighbour, Algeria.
