bbc news photos, mar 18

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US special forces troops have arrived in several north African countries over recent months amid Pentagon warnings that the region runs the risk of becoming an al-Qaida recruiting ground and a possible back door into Europe.

Units of around 200 from the US army's 10th Special Forces Group are already installed, or are due to arrive, in Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger to train their armies in anti-terrorism tactics and to improve coordination with the US military. Military cooperation with Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia - where many suspected violent Islamists detained in Europe over the past two years come from - is also being boosted.

States previously shunned by the international community, such as Algeria, are being provided with arms and military training and may become a cornerstone of US military interests in the region. "We are interested in being able to land at bases in Algeria with our aircraft, or train together," Gen Wald said. "We think we have a lot to learn from the Algerians."

Senior military commanders from several African countries, including General Amari of Algeria, will gather in Stuttgart for a meeting with the Americans next week.

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boston globe, mar 11

reuters, mar 18

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U.S. military experts have been in Timbuktu since January, giving basic weapons training and teaching Malian troops how to move effectively in platoons and ambush the enemy. The aim is to help the former French colony's army to police massive swathes of sand and stop what the United States calls terror networks criss-crossing the desert and setting up cells.

Washington is most worried about the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a hardline Algerian Islamic militant movement that has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda.

"What you see is fundamentalist preachers coming through trying to seduce a peace-loving region in Mali and the Sahel into a more fundamentalist branch of the religion," Vicki Huddleston, U.S. ambassador in Mali, told Reuters by telephone.

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Small teams of elite US soldiers have been working with local security forces in recent months in the Sahara Desert in an effort to capture or kill members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, a radical Islamic organization that has pledged its allegiance to Al Qaeda and is suspected in terrorist plots in Europe and the United States. The group, also known by its acronym, GSPC, was founded in 1998 at the urging of bin Laden as an offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group, the violent domestic opposition to the Algerian government.

"Almost all the Al Qaeda cells that have been picked up in Europe have some link to this group," said Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism specialist at the Investigative Project, a think tank in Washington. "These are the descendants of the Al Qaeda training camps who have gone home." The Salafist group has been the active component of Al Qaeda in Europe, according to Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism specialist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Many of its members are believed to be living among Western Europe's large North African immigrant population, including in the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. US intelligence officials believe Algerians represent the third-largest pool of Al Qaeda recruits, behind Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

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[ 19 March 2004: Message edited by: Willowdale Wizard ]