AP News, January 11th, 2008
Two Mauritanians suspected of involvement in the killings of four French tourists were arrested Friday and officials said they are believed to belong to an Algerian-based terror cell affiliated with al-Qaida.
The two suspects, both in their 20s, have confessed to participating in the Christmas Eve attack, said Lucinda Barbosa, director of judicial police in the tiny West African nation of Guinea-Bissau.
The country is more than 400 miles south of where the tourists were shot while picnicking outside the Mauritanian town of Aleg.
"They confirmed their participation in the assassination," Barbosa said. "From a legal standpoint, they are still innocent. ... But really, all the leads we are pursuing indicate that these are the key players in the deaths of the four French tourists."
A group of five tourists, including several members of the same family, were eating on the side of a highway on Christmas Eve when they were attacked by three men who sprayed them with automatic weapons fire, according to police.
Four of them, including two children, were killed on the spot. The sole survivor was flown to his hometown in France for treatment.
The scale of the attack and the fact that authorities in Mauritania blamed a sleeper terrorist cell linked to al-Qaida led the French organizers of the Dakar Rally to cancel the famed trans-Saharan race, which was to have taken place this week.
A manhunt was launched in Senegal and Mali, Mauritania's immediate neighbors to the south and southeast.
The suspects are believed to be two of the three men who fired on the tourists and the third is believed to have fled to Algeria, said Barbosa, who explained that her information came from discussions with French authorities.
The two were arrested at a hotel on Friday afternoon, and Barbosa said they were the first arrests of terror suspects in Guinea-Bissau.
Mauritanian authorities identified the two as 28-year-old Sidi Ould Sidna, alias Abou Jendel, and 26-year-old Mohamed Ould Chabarnou, alias Mouslim, said a high-ranking police official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Sidna was arrested in 2006 and charged with terrorist activities and links to the Algerian-based network Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, the official said.
The police official said Mauritania is in contact with authorities in Guinea-Bissau to seek the two men's extradition.
In Paris, a French police official confirmed that two suspects in their 20s were arrested in Guinea-Bissau. France's anti-terrorist agencies are involved in the investigation, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
On Monday, nine people were arrested in Mauritania and accused of having helped the gunmen. The nine included a car salesman who allegedly sold the vehicle that the assailants used as their getaway car and a boatman who allegedly helped them cross the river separating Mauritania from Senegal.
The cancellation of the Dakar Rally — a 5,760-mile trek from Europe to Senegal crossing desert, scrubland and savanna — was a huge blow for the region, especially Mauritania, where eight stages of the race had been planned.
In the wake of the killings, Mauritania's government said it had mobilized a 3,000-man security force to ensure race safety. Mauritania's foreign minister called the cancellation unjustified and unfair, and accused France of having overreacted.
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Associated Press writers Jean-Pierre Verges in Paris and Ahmed Mohamed in Nouakchott, Mauritania, contributed to this report.
