U.S. says terror threat, anti-Americanism growing in North Africa

By: DESMOND BUTLER - Associated Press | Wednesday, June 6, 2007 7:25 PM PDT ∞

WASHINGTON -- A senior U.S. State Department official said a growing threat from terrorist groups in North African countries is matched by a rise in animosity toward the United States in the region.

Testifying at a congressional hearing on North Africa, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch also said the United States views a recent proposal by Morocco to solve its decades-old conflict in the Western Sahara as a positive step toward greater regional stability.

Welch told the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives that al-Qaida was expanding its operations in North Africa, but did not have the capacity yet to overturn governments.

"The number of spectacular terrorist attacks in the region has risen, terrorist groups are using tactics and attacking targets that they had previously avoided, and terror cells have been discovered in places where they had not been seen before," he said.

The development traces a rise in animosity to the United States, he said.

"The problem is when these feelings translate into action, and in recent years we have seen the danger, as Americans, of what that means," he said.

Despite public animosity, cooperation is intensifying with Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia in the fight against terror, he said.

"This is one subject where we have done quite well in the last six to eight years," Welch said.

He said a settlement of Morocco's Western Sahara dispute would help those efforts.

For three decades Morocco and Algeria have been divided over the phosphate-rich desert region once claimed by Spain. Morocco claims sovereignty in the territory. Algeria supports the pro-independence Polisario Front rebels, who are based in Algeria, a short distance from the Western Saharan border.

Welch said he hoped both sides would talk over Morocco's recent settlement proposal.

"We consider the Moroccan proposal to provide real autonomy for the Western Sahara serious and credible," he said.

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