Four Militants Escape Prison, Leaving Two Security Officers Dead

Four jihadists escaped on Sunday evening from a prison in Nouakchott, Mauritania, during an operation that resulted in the killing of two security personnel, according to what the Mauritanian interior ministry announced yesterday. The ministry said in a statement: Four terrorists managed to escape from the central prison in Nouakchott after they attacked the guards, leading to a shootout in which two members of the National Guard were killed and two wounded. The identity of the fugitives is not revealed. A military official, who asked not to be named, said two of them have been sentenced to death and two others are awaiting trial on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization. The same source stated that their car was found in the northeast of Nouakchott. The death penalty has not been used in Mauritania since 1987. The ministry said: “The National Guard has tightened control over the prison and immediately began tracking the fugitives in order to arrest them as soon as possible,” urging citizens to report any information that could help in their arrest. The cooperation of the population in the fight against terrorism is part of the connection with the security system that protects the country from armed violence, while militants continue to spread in the neighboring countries of the Sahel. While neighboring Mali has been busy counting the dead since the start of the jihadist uprising in 2012, Mauritania, which has a population of four million, has not been attacked on its soil since 2011. the first decade of this century, especially as a result of attacks and kidnappings. Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad make up the G5 Sahel Group, which Mali left in 2022, and are part of its combined anti-jihadist force backed by France, the United States and the United Nations. France calls on Nouakchott for extensive security and defense cooperation in addition to development. Similarly, the Mauritanian authorities are investing in the training of soldiers, allocating large expenses, new equipment, salaries paid through banks, and social support for soldiers. Mauritania seeks dialogue to win the battle of wits. Since 2020, a dialogue has been organized between leading scientists and about 70 penitentiary surveys. The religious leaders managed to convince about fifty of them to repent. Some of them appeared on television and in mosques, preaching to young people about the strict observance of the Islamic faith. More than 500 imams were recruited and the youth were trained in traditional Islamic schools. According to the official news agency, in 2022 Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Al-Ghazwani pardoned eight prisoners convicted of “terrorism” under the logic of “fighting” extremism through “dialogue”. Similarly, Mauritania has organized dialogue sessions with its armed prisoners on several occasions since the era of former President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (2008 to 2019) with the aim of getting them to repent and reintegrate them into public life. About 30 of them took advantage of it.