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Shots fired on Israeli embassy in Mauritania

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on the Israeli embassy in Mauritania yesterday, causing several injuries, witnesses said, in an attack condemned by Israel as an "act of terrorism."

Witness Ali Fall said that a group of six men had opened fire with automatic weapons, wounding five people including a "foreign woman."

Israeli Ambassador Boaz Bismuth confirmed that shots had been fired but told Israeli radio that there had been only one shooter and no embassy staff had been hurt.

The attack took place shortly after 2am.

Israel condemned the assault, as the Washington-based IntelCenter reported that al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri had called on Mauritanian Muslims to attack the Israeli embassy in Nouakchott a year ago.

"It is a clear act of terrorism that entered the long line of attacks that have targeted our diplomatic representation abroad for several years," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Aryeh Mekel said.

ARAB ALLIES

He underlined the importance that Israel places on its links with Mauritania, one of three Arab countries -- along with Egypt and Jordan -- with which it has full diplomatic relations.

He said the ministry had sent "specialist security officers" to Nouakchott to look into beefing up embassy security.

IntelCenter, which monitors terrorist activities, said al-Zawahiri had called for an attack on the embassy in a video released by al-Qaeda's media mouthpiece, As-Sahab, on Feb. 13 last year.

"This fits the pattern of al-Qaeda announcing targeting preferences in their public messaging up to a year or more before attacks occur," IntelCenter chief executive Ben Venzke said.

Bismuth confirmed that "shots were aimed at our embassy from the street," and added that no one was wounded among the embassy staff or among the Mauritanians working for the embassy.

In an interview with Israeli radio, he said "a single individual" had fired an automatic weapon at the empty embassy building, without injuring anybody.

Fall, who was in a restaurant near the embassy at the time of the attack, said that six men wearing boubous -- long flowing African gowns -- and turbans "got out of a vehicle and walked towards" the restaurant.

After a few minutes "they said loudly in Arabic `let's go' then shouted `Allah Akbar' [God is Greatest] and opened fire" at the embassy, he said.

The embassy guards -- Mauritanian soldiers -- immediately returned fire and the assailants quickly fled, he said.

COOPERATION

In the radio interview, Bismuth praised "the cooperation between embassy security and the Mauritanians charged with protecting it, which enabled them to repel the attack."

The attack comes as pressure increases within Mauritania against the presence of an Israeli embassy there.

The president of the national assembly called on Sunday for the country to "reconsider" the country's "shameful" relations with the Jewish state following its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
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