(Adds fresh Kouchner quotes, arrests paragraphs 4-6,8) NOUAKCHOTT, Feb 8 (Reuters) - France will reinforce its security cooperation with Mauritania following attacks that have raised concern about the spread of al Qaeda in the West African nation, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Friday. The fatal shooting of four French tourists near the southern town of Aleg on Dec. 24, and the killing of three soldiers three days later claimed by al Qaeda's North African branch, prompted the cancellation of the Lisbon-Dakar rally for the first time. In late January, suspected Islamist gunmen opened fire on Israel's embassy in Mauritania, wounding three bystanders including a French woman. "Cooperation between our security services must be strengthened and Mauritania agrees on this," Kouchner told a news conference during a two-day visit to Mauritania. "The organisation al Qaeda is a threat to the world." "Everything that can be done in terms of security cooperation, at Mauritania's request, will be done," Kouchner said, adding that he had proposed a Paris meeting with officials from Portugal, Senegal and Mauritania to discuss security for the Dakar rally. French intelligence services were instrumental in tracking two suspects in the French tourist killings across neighbouring Senegal to the small, former Portuguese colony of Guinea-Bissau where they were arrested in early January. The three recent attacks heightened concerns that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was extending its operations to Mauritania, a large, sparsely populated state at the western end of the Sahara. AQIM was born in January 2007 when Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) affiliated itself to Osama bin Laden's armed Islamic militant network. Local media reported on Thursday that police had arrested eight suspects, including an Algerian, in connection with the shooting at the Israeli embassy. "These attacks are alien to our culture and we strongly condemn them," Mauritanian Interior Minister Zakaria said in an earlier speech, during a visit to a welfare centre with Kouchner. "We will not allow terrorism to take root here." "Mauritania relies on its friends to bolster its security systems and reduce the impact of poverty," he said. The cancellation of the rally, which was due to have eight of its 15 stages in Mauritania, was keenly felt in the poor country straddling black and Arab Africa, where it generates millions of dollars of income. Kouchner expressed regret over the race's cancellation but said he believed the organisers had made a wise decision after the French government informed them of threats to the rally allegedly from al Qaeda. "We understand your sadness but the cancellation does not affect our friendship and our support for you," he said. (Additional reporting by Ibrahima Sylla; Writing by Daniel Flynn, editing by Matthew Tostevin)
An Israeli soldier throws a stun grenade at Palestinian stone throwers during a protest against Israel's controversial barrier near the West Bank village of Bilin February 8, 2008. REUTERS/Mahfouz Abu Turk ...
