Al Qaeda calls for jihad in Mauritania after coup

Al Qaeda's North Africa wing has called for a holy war in Mauritania to establish Islamic rule after a military junta toppled the country's elected president. "Raise the banner of jihad and let us bleed and have our limbs severed until we bring back a caliphate styled along the lines of The Prophet's way," the leader of the al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, Abu Mus'ab Abd el-Wadoud, said in a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday.