20100816
reuters

RABAT (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's North African wing has warned France it will avenge its fighters killed in a raid by French troops in the Sahara desert last month.

In a statement posted on radical Islamist forums, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb called French President Nicolas Sarkozy an "enemy of Allah".

It urged tribes in the desert region straddling Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Algeria to join in the fight against "the sons and agents of Christian France".

The group, which has said it had executed the 78-year-old French hostage Michel Germaneau after the raid failed to free him, told Sarkozy:

"To the enemy of Allah (God) Sarkozy I said: You missed the opportunity and opened the gate of horror for your country."

"The news is what you see, not what you hear. I do not say it would be today or tomorrow or the day after but it will happen," said the statement posted by Abu Anas al Shanghiti.

Al Qaeda has alleged that France launched the raid while negotiations were under way to release Germaneau, contradicting French officials who had said there had been no talks.

Its statement identified its six fighters killed in the raid as three men from Tuareg tribes, an Algerian, a Mauritanian and a Moroccan.

"I call on these proud tribes whose sons have fallen as martyrs .... to revenge them by killing the renegade sons and agents of Christian France," added Shanghiti.