Dakar Rally called off due to "Black September" like Al-Qaeda plan

I got this from Debkafile, a decent source for terrorist information, despite that they are openly affiliated with Israel and Jewish groups.


(Debkafile link to full story)

Hundreds of crews gathered in Lisbon heard at the last minute Friday that the organizers, the Amaury Sport Organization, had called off the challenging 9,000-mile Dakar Rally for the first time over terror threats. Five suspects were detained by Mauritanian intelligence over the murders of a French family of four on Dec. 24 and three soldiers. DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that the suspects told interrogators in Nouakchott that Al Qaeda’s next target in the series was to be the Dakar Rally.

The jihadist group, they said, had deployed terrorist teams in a wide net across the Sahara, Mauritania and Senegal, poised to kill rally participants and take hostages. Eight of the rally’s stages transit Mauritania.

More than 600 cars, trucks, motor-cycles and their crews were set to start the 30th annual Dakar Rally, known as the Everest of off-road racing, Saturday, Jan. 5 and ending at Dakar on Jan. 20 after driving through harsh Saharan terrain. More than 80 percent of the field had invested a year’s hard work and private funds in preparing for the event.

In 2004, several stages of the Dakar Rally were called off because of terror threats in Mali - but never has al Qaeda succeeded in forcing the cancellation of an entire major sporting event. According to our counter-terror sources, al Qaeda’s No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri, who directs the movement’s Maghreb branch, is responsible for this “success.” It has aroused fears in international sporting circles that al Qaeda, having flexed its muscles in Africa, will now try and force the cancellation of the 2008 Beijing Olympics by intimidation.

This is particularly dreadful, so early in the year, Al-Qaeda has been increasingly active in Northwest Africa. Lots of bombings as of late in Algiers, and now attacks in Mauritania. I must say I am surprised at Mauritania being a place that harbors Al-Qaeda, unknowingly. If I lived in Spain, Portugal, or France, I'd be very afraid, more so than an American.

According to Debkafile, they were planning to take rally competitors, athletes, hostage, then murder them, as well as foreigners visitng to spectate. This was after the arrest and capture of a number of Al-Qaeda suspects who tipped them off. I don't doubt the information considering it was possibly tortured out of them, African countries don't play, heheh.

Which makes me wonder, was this attack really going take place, or did the militants lie under torture or pressure to either misdirect from a different attack or, of no attack at all, just something to say to get the police to stop beating you, I'd imagine, and start feeding you, heh. Not that I sympathize more than the basic needs being provided, but I do object to torture. A sound whooping isn't torture, but we know what is.

Anyways, I can only hope that the Mauritanian Authorities can capture some of these hostage taking teams supposedly in place. Thats when we will see if there was any real concrete information given, credible information.

It's still a shame that the Dakar Rally has been called off due to terrorism for the first time ever. There's alot of souped up Subari Rally cars and Peugeot widebody 206's, and Ford Focus Rally cars, as well as Mitsubishi Evo's and all kinds of other vehicles that have to be shipped back to their homes all across the world now. Way to bring in the new year of 2008..

[edit on 1/4/2008 by runetang]

The Horn of Africa is a hot spot for Al Qaeda. They're very active there in recruitment and in setting up training bases. I wouldn't be surprised at all to start seeing more news stories about this region.

The Horn of Africa is, yea, that is the Somalia / Sudan region.

Northwest Africa is the Maghreb region, but it too has an Al-Qaeda branch active most recently, which came from the Salafist Movement for Preach and Combat, an Islamic Algerian Organization who pledged allegience to Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda means the base in Arabic.

The base.. the base.. the beast ..

reply to post by runetang


I should've been more specific, geographically speaking(HOA as well as a number of other north African countries).

Man, this sucks. I love the Dakar race, it's one of the best endurance runs out there.

Maybe the preparations for next year should include some roof mounted .50's.

Now, that would be an entertaining event....

I've read up more on it, and apparently, the French Government had a primary role in pressuring the committee into canceling the event due to the recent terrorist killing of the French family in Mauritania over the holidays. There were also many French nationals on the committee for the rally.

Hmm .. I'm not blaming the French (lol), but .. I personally think more intelligence should've been performed on the area, possibly overhead recon curteousy of the .. United States? Because we all know Spain and Portugal aren't going to offer up some fighter jets to go check the desert.

This race could've happened in my opinion, because we don't know how real the threat really was, and if it was deterable. We will never know.

Score one for Al-Qaeda..