Police and troops in Mauritania, armed with tear gas and automatic weapons, on Tuesday stormed a building in Nouakchott hunting for Islamic extremists but their quarry managed to escape, security sources said.
An operational bomb factory was found in the abandoned house, indicating the presence of a ”terrorist” cell in Nouakchott, capital of the north-west African country, police said.
The raid followed a shootout between police and extremists on Monday night at the same house. The Tuesday operation was an attempt to smoke out gunmen still holding out.
Police withdrew an earlier claim that a fugitive with al-Qaeda links wanted for the murder of four French tourists was among those taken on Monday.
The man, called Sidi Ould Sidna, was one of three charged with the December 24 killings of the tourists, which forced the cancellation of the Dakar motor rally.
Ould Sidna (20), who escaped from a courthouse last Wednesday, was not in fact one of two fugitives, one of whom was killed and another wounded on Monday, police admitted, although they did not rule out him being among those who escaped in Tuesday’s raid.
”He is still on the run,” the source said of Ould Sidna, suspected of involvement with a group of Algerian origin linked to the al-Qaeda network and active since early 2007 in Algeria and its neighbours Mauritania and Mali.
Security sources said a car with five or six people managed to get away during Monday night’s clash under cover of fire from gunmen inside the house.
Officers later found a wounded man in the abandoned car. A security official said originally the captured man was riddled with bullet wounds and police had been 80% sure he was Ould Sidna.
Police surrounded the building early on Tuesday believing militants were still inside, then moved in backed by soldiers at 7.30am local time after firing tear gas and automatic weapons, witnesses said.
But the birds had flown the coop. ”There was nobody there, just ammunition and a few personal effects,” a source said.
The number of men holding out after Monday’s clash was five and not the dozen originally reported, security sources said.
One extremist was killed, another wounded and three were on the run, they said. It was probable that Ould Sidna was among the three, although there was no concrete proof of this.
One member of the security forces was killed and seven wounded in the shootout.
A police officer said the security forces raiding the house on Tuesday discovered a fully operational laboratory for making explosives. Its existence indicated the presence in the capital of a ”terrorist” cell preparing an operation, one officer said.
Security sources said that, after he escaped from the courthouse, police had tracked Ould Sidna to the address of a group close to al-Qaeda last Thursday, but he had managed to elude them. — Sapa-AFP