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SENEGAL — A West African regional court found the government of Niger guilty on Monday of failing to protect a young woman who was sold into slavery at the age of 12. The landmark ruling, which was delivered by a regional tribunal sitting in Niamey, Niger's capital, ordered the government to pay about $19,000 in damages to the woman, Hadijatou Mani, who is now 24. Slavery is outlawed in Niger and the rest of Africa, but it persists in pockets of Niger, Mali and Mauritania. Anti-slavery organizations estimate that 43,000 people are enslaved in Niger alone, where nomadic tribes have...

SNIPPET: "During a meeting with Mauritanian President Muhammad Ould Abdelaziz, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that the elimination of Israel was a certainty, and that accomplishing this was up to the Islamic countries." SNIPPET: "It should be noted that Mauritania has uranium mines."

NOTE: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-proclamation-take-certain-actions-under-african-growth-and-opportunity Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Proclamations The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release December 23, 2009 Presidential Proclamation - To Take Certain Actions Under the African Growth and Opportunity Act A PROCLAMATION 1. Section 506A(a)(1) of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (the "1974 Act") (19 U.S.C. 2466a(a)(1)), as added by section 111(a) of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (title I of Public Law 106-200) (AGOA), authorizes the President to designate a country listed in section 107 of the AGOA (19 U.S.C. 3706)...

Mauritania government has increased security for tourists in the country following the abductions last week of two Italian tourists near the border with Mali. Sergio Cicala and his wife Philomene Kabouree were kidnapped in an area of Mauritania where armed groups with links to Al-Qaeda are known to operate, diplomats said. There are suspicions the couple may have been smuggled into neighbouring Mali. "After these new kidnappings, it has been decided to adopt all necessary measures to ensure the personal security of foreigners in our country," the government said, quoted on Monday by pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi. It was the...

SNIPPET: "Three Spanish aid workers were kidnapped in the North African nation Mauritania on Sunday. Spain’s Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, expressed his concerns that kidnappers could be members of the North African branch of Al Qaeda." SNIPPET: "The names of the workers kidnapped are Alicia Gámez, Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta. Vilalta’s father, Albert Vilalta is a former regional councilor for the environment."

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: al-Qa'ida Threat to Americans in Mauritania during Ramadan CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Sub-Saharan Africa - Mauritania 23 Aug 2009 U.S. Embassy Nouakchott issued the following Warden Message on August 23, 2009: Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) may use Ramadan as an opportunity to conduct further attacks against American citizens. Both U.S. Government officials and private Americans working for faith-based organizations may be particularly targeted. American citizens traveling to or residing in Mauritania should maintain a sense...

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the French embassy in Mauritania's capital, wounding two members of staff. Mauritanian police say the suicide bomber was a wanted "member of the jihadist movement". AFP - A suicide bomber died Saturday after staging an explosion near the French embassy in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, as two members of staff were jogging nearby, police and embassy staff said. Two French nationals, security employees at the French embassy, were near the man at the moment of the blast," embassy official Marc Flattot told AFP. "They are in hospital, they are unharmed, but in shock,"...

More than half a million slaves are at the heart of a presidential election battle in the former French colony of Mauritania. A year after she ran away from her master, Barakatu Mint Sayed prays that the election on July 18 will mark the beginning of the end of slavery in Mauritania. Her nation is one of the last places on Earth where large numbers of humans are still kept as property.

SNIPPET: "So, what I’m seeing here is that the death of these two Mauritanian scholars offered a convenient opportunity for al-Qaida to start co-branding Abu Yahya al-Libi and Atiyah abd al-Rahman (Attiyatallah) together as the unified tip of al-Qaida’s ideological spear. In other words, the leadership transition has begun. The heirs are no longer apparent. They have been named. It began with letters to al-Zarqawi and videotaped interviews and recorded statements and sermons. The naming continued with getting props in Exoneration and photoshoots and now joint releases. This jointly written eulogy release (I have never seen AQ release a two-authored...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Mauritania Kidnapping Threat CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Sub-Saharan Africa - Mauritania 27 Jun 2009 U.S. Embassy Nouakchott released the following SMS Warden Message on June 27: Embassy advises American citizens in Nouakchott of a credible threat of a kidnapping attempt tonight, June 27. Americans should exercise utmost security and remain securely locked in their residences and take extreme caution while in vehicles or offices. RELATED REPORTS 23 Jun 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: MAURITANIA SECURITY AWARENESS FOLLOWING U.S. CITIZEN MURDER 12 Jun...

Gunmen shot and killed an American man Tuesday as he left his car in the capital of the West African nation of Mauritania, police and witnesses said. Two men had initially tried to kidnap the man, but he resisted and they shot him when they realized they could not overpower him, a police officer said. The office did not give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Witness Bilal Ould Mohamed and other neighbors said the man was a U.S. professor teaching at a center specializing in computer science in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood...

The Foreign Ministry said Friday it had closed its embassy after the government of this overwhelmingly Muslim West African nation asked the Israeli ambassador and his staff to leave. The move came after Mauritania's military junta recalled its own ambassador from Israel last month. In January, Mauritania said it was suspending ties with Israel over its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza. "Following the Mauritanian government's decision, on January 16th 2009, to freeze diplomatic relations with Israel, and at its request, Israel will close its embassy in Nouakchott as of today," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said in a...

Fears are growing for the fate of thousands of young girls in rural Mauritania, where campaigners say the cruel practice of force-feeding young girls for marriage is making a significant comeback since a military junta took over the West African country. Aminetou Mint Ely, a women's rights campaigner, said girls as young as five were still being subjected to the tradition of leblouh every year. The practice sees them tortured into swallowing gargantuan amounts of food and liquid - and consuming their vomit if they reject it. "In Mauritania, a woman's size indicates the amount of space she occupies in...

Israel's air force fired around 20 missiles at targets in Gaza City on Saturday, causing heavy damage, a Reuters witness said. The IDF has confirmed the report. (Hanan Greenberg and Reuters)

FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

Al-Qa'ida Calls on Mauritanians to Establish Islamic Caliphate The Media Line, NY - Aug 13, 2008 Al-Qa'ida's branch in Iraq announced at the end of 2006 the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in a Sunni region in southern Iraq. ...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Army officers upset with government overtures toward Islamic hard-liners staged a coup in Mauritania on Wednesday, overthrowing the first government to be freely elected in this sprawling desert nation in more than 20 years. The coup in Africa's newest oil producer took place after the president and prime minister fired the country's top four military officials, reportedly for supporting lawmakers who had accused the president of corruption and disagreed with how he was reaching out to Islamic hard-liners. A brief announcement read over state television Wednesday said the new "state council" will be led by presidential guard chief Gen. Mohamed...

President held in Mauritania coup NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) — Troops overthrew Mauritania's president in a military coup on Wednesday after he tried to sack senior army officers accused of being behind a political crisis destabilising the country. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was arrested as troops rolled through the capital Nouakchott and took over the presidential palace and the prime minister's office. They chased staff from the headquarters of state radio and television, though there was no sign of fighting in the city. A statement read on public radio said the coup was led by the head of the presidential guard,...