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WORLD BRIEFING / MAURITANIA

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Times Wire Reports

A police official says a third suspected Al Qaeda member was arrested for the June slaying of an American teacher.

Police commissioner Mohammed Ould Ghassem says 26-year-old Didi Ould Bezeid was arrested in Nouakchott, the capital.

Ghassem said Bezeid was the third member of a suspected Al Qaeda-linked terrorist cell that claimed responsibility for the killing of 39-year-old Christopher Ervin Leggett. The North Africa branch of Al Qaeda claimed to have killed Leggett because it said he was trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

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On July 17, police arrested two other suspects in the killing.

Extremist violence in Mauritania, a moderate Muslim nation, has increased in recent years.

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