Articles
Report: Al-Qaeda Claims French Hostage Killed
(NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania) — A Mauritanian-based website said that al-Qaeda's North African branch has executed a French hostage in retaliation for France's...
Can Mauritania’s President Survive Both Coup-Plotters and al-Qaeda?
For presidents one rule of thumb for political survival is not to leave your country for too long especially if you are thinking of waging a regional war against...
How the Injury to an African Dictator May Hobble France
A key Western ally in the fight against al-Qaeda in North Africa was shot on the weekend and airlifted to a Paris hospital, in what could spell trouble in an...
Is Al-Qaeda Beefing Up Its Presence in Mali?
Ali Cissé, 30, a shopkeeper, couldn't contain his curiosity when a new wave of gunmen rolled into town. Outside the governor's compound in downtown Gao -- a...
Lessons Unlearned: Why Another Gigantic Famine Looms in Africa
In Gaet Teidouma, a small village in a plain of sand and rocks more than 800 km (500 miles) east of Mauritania's capital Nouakchott, Kertouma Mint Sedatty tries...
North Africa's Sahel: The Next Terrorism Hot Spot?
With a gigantic cache of of advanced anti-aircraft rockets missing from a raided storage space in Tripoli this week, concerns rose that the Gaddafi regime's...
Terror Threat in N. Africa: Kidnapping Foreigners
In the three years since allying itself with Osama bin Laden, North Africa's al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) militant group has worked hard to align its...
The Perilous Tide
Posted Friday, May 26, 2006 Just last autumn, desperate African migrants scaled barbed wire fences on Morocco's northern coast—a mere 14 km from this Spanish...
Mauritania: Daddah Knows Best
When Mauritania won its independence in 1960, sovereignty and sand were about all it had. Sprawled across the lower Sahara on Africa's Atlantic hump, the arid...
MAURITANIA: Exit Daddah
A costly war provokes a coup Citizens of the quiet, sand-swept Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott (pop. 103,500) were trudging to their jobs early one morning...
MAURITANIA: Why Not Corsica?
Last week the vast but thinly populated (650,000) French territory of Mauritania became the 18th nation to achieve independence this year. Tunisia quickly...
MAURITANIA: Hope in the Desert
A volley from the muskets of blue-turbaned Moorish guards rattled in the desert air as the Air France DC-4 taxied to a halt. Smiling, the youthful figure,...
NORTH AFRICA: Shadowy War in the Sahara
Polisario. What is it? Someone's name? Some sort of police force? Actually, it is the latest in the long list of labels attached to the world's many guerrilla...
Science: Shadow Over Sahara
Water wells are miles apart. Under the blistering sun, the temperature of the sand often reaches 180° F. Despite these forbidding conditions, foreigners have...
United Nations: Package Deal
After months of public haggling, the U.N. Security Council last week succumbed to Russian blackmail and voted in two new members: Mauritania and the Mongolian...
Foreign News: Sons of the Same Country
Of all the delegates from French Africa to attend a conference in Paris last January, none were more lavishly treated than the four gentlemen from Mauritaniathe...
NORTH AFRICA: Empire of Sand
Nations which get their independence by exercising a boundless nationalism often appear incapable of keeping their nationalism within boundaries. A case in...
Jihadi Strike In Timbuktu Reflects Altered Terror Threat In Mali
As France prepares its military departure from Mali, a March 31 strike by militants in Timbuktu indicates how jihadi forces aren't giving up--just reverting to...
Can Female Genital Mutilation Be Surgically Undone?
As a young child Aïssa could not understand how she could conjure up such horrific images. No one had ever explained to Aïssa what her parents had allowed to...
Destroying Timbuktu: The Jihadist who Inspires the Demolition of the Shrines
Omar Hamaha is a one-man whirlwind of piety and fury. For more than a decade he has been accused of raiding government outposts in Mauritania, Algeria and Niger;...
