French tourist murders 'a terror act'

Mauritanian prosecutors called the Christmas Eve murder of four French tourists a terrorist act and said security forces were hunting three suspects believed to be members of a regional al-Qaida-linked network.

The three suspects crossed the border into Senegal last night, said Sidi Mouloud Ould Brahim, the governor of the region where the attack occurred.

Senegalese officials could not confirm whether the suspects were in their territory, but authorities said security forces were sweeping the border region in search of the three men.

Gunmen shot the tourists on Christmas Eve as they picnicked on the side of a road near Aleg, a small town 150 miles east of Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott, police said.

The attackers then fled south towards the Senegalese border, police said.

The sole survivor, the family’s father, was seriously injured and flown overnight to the main hospital in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, where he was in an intensive care unit, said Moussa Samb, spokesman for the hospital.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon today identified the survivor as Francois Tollet and said he had been repatriated to France.

“I assure you that French authorities are determined to shed light on this tragedy,” Mr Fillon told reporters.

A statement issued yesterday by the public prosecutor’s office in Mauritania’s capital said the attack was perpetrated by three men who it said were known members of the Algeria-based terror network al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa.

At least two of the suspects had been accused by prosecutors earlier this year of being members of the al-Qaida-linked terror group and of having undergone military training with them in Algeria.

The prosecutor’s statement said the trial of one of the men earlier this year was postponed. The second man was acquitted, but prosecutors appealed. There were no details on the third suspect.

In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry declined to confirm the victims’ names. Police and French diplomats in Mauritania say the survivor is in his 70s.

Though authorities initially thought the family had been robbed, subsequent investigations have shown they had not been, the Interior Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.