Niger official doubts anti-terror efforts
2011-09-08 21:33
Algiers - Officials from Saharan countries on Thursday pledged to continue working together in the fight against terrorism, despite Niger's foreign minister telling a local newspaper that co-operation so far has been ineffective.
Foreign ministers from Algeria, Niger, Mali and Mauritania this week met for a two-day conference in Algiers on security challenges across the vast Sahara. Discussions included how to deal with an active branch of al-Qaeda that has kidnapped more than a dozen foreigners.
Mohamed Bazoum of Niger, however, noted that to date the four countries' existing joint military body based in the Algerian town of Tamanrasset has been ineffective.
"So far, we have not seen it execute a single concrete operation. We would like CEMOC to carry out concrete actions," he told the independent daily newspaper Liberte, referring to the Committee of Joint Chiefs of the four countries founded in 2010.
Bazoum added that he now hoped to see a much more vigorous joint military presence patrolling in the 8 000 000km² of desert shared by the four countries.
The conference's conclusion - which included high level delegations from France and the United States - saw the countries pledge closer cooperation in the fight against terrorism, as well as plans to develop impoverished communities in the Sahara.
A French intelligence official in Paris, however, dismissed the conference as "diplomatic posturing," saying that the four are not co-operating in the fight against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb nearly as well as they could.
He spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
AQIM grew out of the armed groups fighting the Algerian government in the 1990s after elections were canceled by the military in 1991 to stave off a victory for an Islamist political party.
The group declared allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2006 and changed its name, embarking on a renewed campaign of bombings and kidnappings across the Sahara.
Shari Villarosa, the head of the US delegation to the conference and a member of the state department's anti-terrorism team, estimated AQIM was comprised of less than 1 000 members.
On September 1, AQIM announced it had killed 29 members of Algeria's security forces between July and August, including 18 killed in twin suicide bombings of the Algerian military academy at Cherchell on August 26.
According to reports cited by the US embassy in a 2007 cable released by WikiLeaks, the organization has been thriving on ransoms from kidnappings and smuggling routes for guns, cigarettes and drugs through the Sahara.
- AP
