Mauritania hosts international army

Mauritania is set to embark on new military training exercises involving forces from 19 Arab, African and western countries. Each participating state is contributing 30 soldiers to the February 18 manoeuvres due to take place in the African country. French and African troops there have been trying to expel militant Islamist groups which took over northern areas in April 2012. A Mauritanian military spokesperson has said the exercises will take place in three northern provinces, which are sufficiently distant from the capital. The spokesperson denied that the exercises were part of plans for a multinational intervention in Mali. As the army prepares for the military manoeuvres, the Mauritanian Minister of Defence visited the northern city of al-Oyoun, opening a new police complex near where the exercises will take place. Opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah has meanwhile claimed that Mauritania has been illicitly involved in the war. Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has repeatedly dismissed the possibility of Mauritanian participation in the war in Mali. In a press conference in January, Ould Abdel Aziz said his country's armed forces were prepared to repel any attack on Mauritanian territories by Islamist militants. The Mauritanian army conducted a military operation on Malian territories in 2011, striking Jihadi groups in the town of Gao. Border security has been the focus recently, as the war rages in northern Mali. Border patrols have been stepped-up in an attempt to prevent the entry of Islamist fighters into Mauritania, which is also receiving Malian refugees fleeing the fighting.