NOUAKCHOTT - Mauritania has deployed troops across the country and tightened its desert borders against the threat of attacks from Al Qaeda-linked militants, the interior minister said.
"Mauritanian territory is under control after the redeployment of the army in the country and the establishment of 45 border transit points," Interior Minister Mohamed Ould Boilil said.
The stepped-up border security is aimed at tightening its frontiers with Algeria and Mali amid reports that the Islamist militants use the porous desert borders to pass freely through the arid Sahel region.
The minister's comments late Tuesday came in the wake of a joint raid with French troops on an Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) camp in neighbouring Mali in which seven militants were killed.
France said the raid last week was aimed at freeing Michel Germaneau, a 78-year-old French hostage held by AQIM since April.
Mauritania said the attack was a pre-emptive strike against the AQIM unit which it said was planning an attack on its territory on July 28.
AQIM announced Sunday it had executed Germaneau to avenge those killed in the raid. It said six of its militants had been killed.
The bodies of seven militants have been recovered and displayed on Mauritanian state television. Investigators say they identified one as Bil Al Jazairi, an Algerian believed to be one of AQIM's leaders.
The interior minister, speaking after visiting the new national security headquarters in Nouakchott, called on Mauritania's citizens "to assume their responsibilities towards their country and help it through these changing times".
He said the government had taken measures to improve "the performance and working conditions of personnel working in national security," referring to salary increases for the security forces approved this year.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday that France would step up its cooperation with local anti-terrorism forces in the region in what he described as a "war with Al-Qaeda".
France has warned its citizens not to travel in the region, in which two Spanish aid workers kidnapped eight months ago are still being held.
AQIM operates across the Sahel, a vast semi-desert region which runs through Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Algeria.
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