DTN News: African Army Chiefs Discuss Counterterrorism Tactics

DTN News: African Army Chiefs Discuss Counterterrorism Tactics *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) ALGIERS, Algeria - August 12, 2009: The army chiefs of staff of four northwest African nations met Aug. 12 in Tamanrasset, southern Algeria, to discuss joint tactics to fight terrorism in their region, an official statement said. Female police cadets march during their graduation ceremony at the police academy in Ain Benian August 6, 2009. Even in relatively liberal Algeria, some people believe the police force is not a suitable profession for a Muslim woman, and, whatever your gender, it can be a dangerous job: Islamist insurgents have killed hundreds of officers. But Algeria, a former French colony in North Africa where almost all the 35 million population are Muslim, takes pride in the fact that equality for women is enshrined in its laws. The Algerian hosts were joined by top-ranking soldiers from Mauritania, Mali and Niger, all susceptible to violence for which responsibility is often claimed by Al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). At the meeting, the military men would "together study ways and means of strengthening cooperation against the criminal behavior in cross-border territories, and in particular, terrorism," the Algerian authorities said. The chiefs of staff were meeting at the Tamanrasset headquarters of the 6th Military Region, deep in the Algerian Sahara, as part of an ongoing effort to share tactical resources and military intelligence. AQIM, which emerged from one of Algeria's armed Islamic extremist movements, has in recent months carried out attacks and taken civilian Western hostages in Niger and Mali, as well as fighting the Algerian security forces. In Mauritania, a young suicide bomber killed himself and injured two French paramilitary police and a Mauritanian when he detonated a belt packed with explosives Aug. 8 near the French embassy in Nouakchott. The attack was Mauritania's first suicide bombing. On Aug. 10, Mauritania's Interior Minister, Mohamed Ould R'Zeizim, said the bomber had been recruited "by the Salafists," the Islamic movement to which AQIM claims allegiance, and had been trained in camps in the Sahara. A vast stretch of the desert and the arid Sahel to the south is difficult to police, and it is a region where smugglers of all kinds and drug traffickers are active, as well as Muslim fundamentalists.