Magharebia

Foreign ministers of Sahel countries Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, along with their peers from Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Chad, will hold a security summit next month in Mauritania, Algerian Minister for Maghreb and African Affairs Abdelkader Messahel said Sunday (November 13th) in Algiers.

Speaking at a joint press conference with visiting Mauritanian Foreign Minister Hamadi Ould Baba Ould Hamadi, Messahel said that the Nouakchott meeting in early December would address ties between al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Nigerian terrorist organisation Boko Haram.

"Our goal is to assess the degree of the terrorist threat and act accordingly by collective and concrete action," he said.

Boko Haram (translated as "western education is dangerous") engineered the August 26th UN bombing in Abuja that left 23 dead and scores wounded. The group has perpetrated several other attacks on churches, hotels and public buildings in northern Nigeria since the beginning of the year, Tout sur l'Algerie reported.