Report: Mauritania arrests three in Israeli Embassy shooting

Mauritanian authorities have apprehended three suspects believed to be connected to the shooting on the Israeli Embassy in the capital of Nouakchott, Israel Radio said Saturday morning, citing local media reports in Mauritania.

Gunmen opened fire on the Israeli Embassy early Friday, wounding three French citizens, officials and witnesses said.

The three suspects were reportedly arrested while attempting to flee a police checkpoint, according to Israel Radio.

Local media reported that police discovered during the course of the interrogation that the suspects were en route to a rendezvous point nearby, where a getaway car was awaiting them.

Mauritania's foreign minister, Mohamed Saleck Mohamed el-Amin, met with Israel's ambassador, Boaz Bismuth, during which the minister conveyed his sorrow over the shooting, Israel Radio reported.

Bismuth said no embassy staff were hurt in the shooting attack, speaking to Israel Radio in a telephone conversation on Friday.

A French woman outside a nightclub near the embassy was among those wounded by the gunmen, officials and witnesses said.

Emergency services initially reported that a number of people were wounded in the shooting, but Bismuth said he was only aware of one person who had been hurt outside the embassy, a Mauritanian who lived nearby.

Two witnesses told The Associated Press that the attack had been carried out by a group of men who shouted "God is Great!" in Arabic before opening fire on the embassy around 2 A.M.

Mauritanian officials issued no immediate comment.

Hamza Ould Bilal, a taxi driver who had been parked outside the VIP, a disco next to the embassy, said that six men gathered outside the club before pulling out weapons and attacking. Guards at the embassy traded fire with the gunmen, who fled on foot and jumped into a car, Bilal said.

Ali Fall, a club employee, said several men attacked the embassy with guns before fleeing in a car. The assailants also sprayed gunfire at the club, injuring three French citizens.

The woman was injured when bullets hit the car she was in and she was taken to hospital by a companion.

The neighborhood was cordoned off by the Mauritanian military, who prevented journalists and visitors from entering.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and her ministry's Director-General, Aharon Abramovich, spoke to Bismuth shoftly after the incident on Friday morning, Israel Radio reported.

Abramovich told Israel Radio that ties with Mauritania are important to Israel, and expressed the hope that they would be strengthened in the future, in the light of the peace process with the Palestinians.

Speaking to Reuters, Bismuth said: "I have received many phone calls from Mauritanian friends who are very concerned. That is the only positive thing in a very sad night."

"It only happened a few hours ago, but a shooting on a foreign embassy is a very serious incident."

An Israeli security official left for Mauritania on Friday morning to examine the security arrangements at the embassy, Israel Radio reported.

The attack followed recent public calls by political parties in Mauritania, an Islamic Republic which straddles black and Arab Africa, for the government to sever diplomatic ties with Israel. The country is one of the few Arab League states to have relations with Israel.

On Christmas Eve, four French tourists were killed by gunmen while picnicking on the side of a road in Mauritania, an act the government blamed on a terror sleeper cell affiliated with Al-Qaida. Their killing led the French organizers of the famous Dakar Rally to cancel the long-standing trans-Saharan race, which would have traversed this desert nation last month.

	Security officials examine bullet holes on a vehicle windshield after gunmen opened fire on the Israeli embassy in Nouakchott, early Friday. (Reuters)