NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) — A dozen Mauritanian soldiers were killed in an ambush Monday by members of Al-Qaeda's north African branch as they patrolled in the northern part of the country, a security official said.
The unit was "on a normal patrol on the northern border" when the attack took place 70 kilometres (45 miles) east of the mining town of Zouerat, close to the Western Sahara.
The official did not say whether any of the assailants, described as members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), were killed in the attack, the worst of its kind in three years.
The remainder of the patrol, which numbered 22 or 23 soldiers, managed to return to base afterwards, the official said, adding that reinforcements had been sent to the area near the Moroccan border.
Last month a statement by AQIM appeared on the Internet condemning the August 6 military coup in Mauritania and urging the Mauritanian people "to prepare for war."
The suspected head of Al-Qaeda in Mauritania, El Khadim Ould Esseman, also urged the country's Muslims not to recognise the ruling military junta, calling it an "infidel regime."
Monday's ambush came as the African Union's security and peace commissioner, Ramdane Lamamra, was to meet coup leader General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz to try to broker an end to the country's constitutional crisis.
Mauritania, a vast desert country in west Africa, was shaken between December 2007 and February 2008 by three deadly attacks from extremists linked to Al-Qaeda which left seven people dead, including four French tourists.
At the beginning of April, a policemen and two extremists were also killed in a gun battle near Nouakchott.
More than 30 suspected Islamic militants are being held in Mauritania in connection with the attacks.
In 2005, an attack claimed by AQIM, formerly known as the Algerian-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, on a military base in north-east Mauritania left 15 soldiers dead, two missing and 17 wounded.
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