US marines will train Mauritania's military in counter-insurgency tactics this month as the Islamic state straddling the Sahara confronts what diplomats see as an increased threat from al Qaeda.
Next week's arrival of the US military instructors falls under Washington's Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP), which seeks to help African armies bolster their defences against possible Islamic militant violence.
Although already scheduled, the American military training mission comes just three weeks after two attacks in Mauritania - one killing four French tourists, another Mauritanian soldiers - attributed to al Qaeda members.
The December killings shocked the normally peaceful Muslim republic and set off alarm bells among foreign security agencies about the risk that al Qaeda's North African branch is extending its operations further south into western sub-Saharan Africa.
"If the Mauritanian government says it needs help in this capacity, you will probably see a receptive attitude from most of the West," one Nouakchott-based Western diplomat said.
A suspected al Qaeda cell killed four picknicking French tourists in a Christmas Eve attack in southeast Mauritania. Two of the suspects were arrested this month in Guinea-Bissau and told police they belonged to al Qaeda, raising fears of a regional network that could be linked to drug trafficking.
Also in late December, al Qaeda's North African branch claimed the killing of four soldiers in Mauritania's northeast.
The US marines will train Mauritanian Camel Corps soldiers who patrol this northeast desert quadrant bordering Algeria, the Western Sahara and Mali, an area of past militant attacks.
Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi has strongly condemned the killings, which led to the cancellation of the 2008 Lisbon-Dakar rally, a major tourist draw and income earner for several countries in northwest Africa.
"We're determined to work ... to fight against organised crime in all its forms, to fight the use and trafficking of drugs and confront extremism and terrorism," Abdallahi said in a speech opening the new judicial year yesterday.
The December attacks came as a surprise to the Mauritanian authorities, who have previously counted on the country's traditionally moderate and tolerant brand of Islam to shield it from the kind of extremist violence seen in Algeria and Morocco.
"It was a bit of a shock and wake-up call for a lot of Mauritanians," the Western diplomat said.