NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - Organisers gave the green light Friday for the 30th Dakar Rally to proceed as planned through the African state of Mauritania despite security fears prompted by recent Al-Qaeda linked attacks.
Mauritania has announced that it would mobilise 2,000 soldiers and 2,000 plainclothes police to monitor the rally as it passes through the country between January 11 and January 19.
"We are going ahead with the Mauritanian stages of the rally.... It now seems that the security situation is back on track," Etienne Lavigne, the French director of the event, told AFP.
"There is nothing to fear, every precaution has been put in place," Interior Minister Yall Zakaria said.
Zakaria said he told the rally inspectors that "all necessary measures have been taken by the government to ensure that the event's passage through Mauritania takes place in the best possible conditions."
He added: "They left feeling reassured and comforted at the end of our discussions. (This week's) attacks are isolated incidents which should not be interpreted as proof that Mauritania is gripped by unrest."
Zakaria's pledges appear to have won over an organising team that arrived to examine conditions on Thursday, the same day that three soldiers were killed during an armed ambush in the northeast of the country.
Three days earlier, four French adventure tourists were shot dead and a fifth injured by three Mauritanians, said by government officials to have Al-Qaeda links.
The suspects are still on the run after fleeing across the southeastern border with Senegal. Two of the men were previously arrested in connection with the extremist Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).
The Algeria-based group earlier this year declared allegiance to Al-Qaeda and renamed itself Al-Qaeda's Branch in the Islamic Maghreb.
The new military reinforcements have been sent to the desert region between Algeria, Mauritania and Mali, where the GSPC is active, security officials said.
Rally chief Lavigne met with French embassy officials, who are monitoring the advice they give to travellers, before speaking to AFP.
Terror threats from Mauritania, normally seen as a safe country to travel through, had already forced the cancellation of two planned stages between Nema and Timbuktu in neighbouring Mali during last year's rally.
Security and safety issues were already the priority for the Dakar Rally starting in January after the 2007 edition was overshadowed by the tragic death of two motorcyclists.
South African Elmer Symons and Frenchman Eric Aubijoux became the latest victims of this controversial race that is much criticised for the reckless manner racers charge through unchartered nomadic terrain in northwest Africa.
Some 245 motorbikes, 20 quads, 205 cars and 100 trucks have registered - 60 more than this year - in the race which starts in Lisbon on January 5 and covers 9,273 kilometres (5,762 miles) before finishing in the Senegalese capital Dakar on January 20.
