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Terrorists' Threats Cancel Off-Road Race

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Los Angeles Times

Published: January 5, 2008

PARIS - After 29 consecutive years of an epic event that saw drivers enduring extreme heat and cold crossing the Sahara Desert, organizers canceled the world's biggest off-road race Friday after an al-Qaida-linked group threatened the 5,760-mile Dakar Rally.

Involving more than 500 car, truck, motorcycle and quad drivers from 50 countries, the rally had been scheduled to begin today in Lisbon, Portugal, and end Jan. 20 in Dakar, the capital of the western African nation of Senegal. Participants were gathering in the Portuguese capital.

But the Paris-based Amaury Sport Organization abruptly reversed course Friday under pressure from the French government.

In recent days, French intelligence officials had become increasingly concerned after al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb, a northern African group, made explicit threats against the rally. The group was blamed for the murder the day before Christmas of a French family vacationing in Mauritania. Eight of the 15 days of the race were to take place in Mauritania.

As it fights off a crackdown by North African authorities, the regional offshoot of al-Qaida increasingly has focused on international targets, hitting the U.N. headquarters in Algiers last month in one of a pair of bombings that left 37 people dead.

Although the Mauritanian government promised a 3,000-strong security force to protect the participants, it would have been difficult to protect them against snipers or suicide bombers, experts said.

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