The US embassy in Senegal, the administration's forward diplomatic base, announced in May that Washington plans to pump USD100 million a year for the next five years in Africa to bolster security in nine countries in one of the world's least policed zones - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Nigeria. That represents a massive increase compared with the current US spending level of around USD6 million a year, largely for military training, in just four African states - Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Niger.

These Saharan countries, considered most at risk because they adjoin the Arab world and have scant resources to monitor or patrol their desert borders, have already encountered North African militants moving southwards. One of the GSPC leaders who spearheaded that thrust, Amari Saifi, was captured by Chadian rebels after a desert gun battle in 2004. On 25 June 2005, he was sentenced by a court in Algiers to life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, last month, some 1,000 US soldiers, most of them Special Forces personnel, embarked on Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorist Initiative (TSCTI) training programmes in Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Niger and Algeria. Senegal, Nigeria, Tunisia and Morocco joined in later in the month.

Overall, some 3,000 Africans will be trained in airborne operations and other military skills to counter terrorist infiltration. US military and intelligence sources warn that ancient desert smuggling routes stretching from Mauritania in the west and Sudan in the east are becoming "areas of choice" for Al-Qaeda and other militant groups as they seek to boost recruitment in the region.