WASHINGTON (AP) – American counterterrorism officials are paying renewed attention to an increasingly dangerous incubator for extremism: a swath of northern and sub-Saharan West Africa, from the Atlantic coast of Morocco and Mauritania to the harsh deserts of Chad.

The centerpiece of terrorism problems in the region is Algeria’s Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, better known by its French initials GSPC. Late last year, it joined forces with Osama bin Laden and renamed itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an Arabic term used to refer to North Africa.

“The threat from Al Qaeda’s presence in the region is significant, very dangerous and potentially growing in a couple of cases,” Assistant Secretary of State Welch told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

In interviews, senior government officials go even further as they talk about recent developments in the impoverished region of North Africa, the Sahara, and the grasslands to the south known as the Sahel. The vast area has the potential to become more volatile, said three senior officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of their positions.

One senior American intelligence official said the new Al Qaeda-focused GSPC is more dangerous than its predecessor because its links to bin Laden boosted morale and its new focus on government buildings and suicide attacks is a shift in targeting.

“We should be worried about it. It hasn’t really blossomed yet,” the official said.

While the group probably could not attack the American homeland yet, the official said, it could attack American targets in North Africa such as embassies, tourists and people on business.

The American focus on the group comes as the Bush administration finalizes plans to create a new military command in Africa, called AFRICOM. The continent now falls under the direction of three different military commands.

Officials from the Defense and State departments toured six Africa countries in April, trying to ease concerns about feared increases in American troops and resources. Pentagon officials say the new command does not mean a dramatic boost in either.

A recent Congressional Research Service report found that the command raises questions for Congress, including how to ensure that military activities do not overshadow American diplomatic efforts.

The report said the State Department and the American Agency for International Development worry the Pentagon may overstep its mandate, as well as overestimate its capabilities and its diplomatic role.

The State Department has for some time taken the lead in northwestern Africa. In June 2005, largely out of concern about the GSPC, it began a program to build cooperation with countries in the region. “The Sahara is very much a no-man’s-land where they can hang out and procure weapons and training,” one official said.

American officials say GPSC support cells have been dismantled in Spain, Italy, Morocco, and Mali, and the group maintains training camps across the Sahel grasslands.

After linking up with Al Qaeda, the group carried out a suicide bombing in Algiers last month targeting a high-profile Government Palace and a police station. Thirty-three people died in the first suicide attacks in Algeria in a decade. The group has promised to target non-Muslim foreigners who it deems to have exploited Muslim lands – specifically diplomats, business people and tourists in North Africa.

Like Al Qaeda, the group produces videos, a digital magazine and books, according to IntelCenter, the American government contractor that monitors the material. Just this past week it distributed a new video showing its members and operations.

American government officials note the Algerian government was successful at containing Islamic insurgents during the 1990s. But tens of thousands died in the violence.

Analysts do not yet consider North and Western Africa a safe haven for terrorists in the way Afghanistan was under Taliban rule.

In a recent examination of current and future safe havens, not discussed publicly before, counterterrorism officials concluded that Al Qaeda’s main organization does not have many options outside of the Afghan-Pakistani border region. It is unlikely to lose that base soon, the senior American intelligence official said.

But the official said authorities have looked at the pros and cons of different areas of the world as terrorist havens, including the ungoverned areas of the Sahel.

While the region lacks population, accessibility and hospitable living conditions, officials said the area still makes sense as an Al Qaeda location in the Islamic Maghreb because of its porous borders, lax government oversight, poverty and political unrest. _Money from Persian Gulf and Middle East. American officials say private Saudi donors have funneled money to Sunni Muslim schools and mosques in the region. But one intelligence official noted much of the money is intended to counter the influence of Iran, which also funds Shiite interests in the region.

_A sizable population of potentially impressionable young people. West Africa is roughly half Muslim, with higher concentrations in the Sahel. With its extensive links to the Middle East, the region is fertile ground for radical ideas.

_Areas of instability. Morocco and Algerian-backed Polisario Front rebels have disputed desert lands of the largely Muslim Western Sahara for decades, forcing 100,000 people into refugee camps in Algeria. In Nigeria, which has a large Muslim population in the north, elections last month have been largely discredited. The issue has been overlooked greatly, even though the country is Africa’s largest oil producer and is on the brink of becoming a failed state, especially in its southern Delta region, the official added.

This official noted that the terrorism problem shows up differently in North and Western Africa in comparison with other parts of the world.

In the Sahel, for instance, extremists are not always the poorest of the poor, but rather – as is the case in northern Nigeria – educated young people, the official said.

Representative Jane Harman, who as a member of the House Homeland Security Committee has traveled often to Africa, said she once thought North Africa was a fragile place from which extremists could threaten Europe. Ms. Harman, Democrat of California, said she now thinks it could be a staging ground for attacks worldwide.

For years, she said, Africa got too little attention. “I think we have underestimated the capabilities of Al Qaeda to get a beachhead there,” Ms. Harman said.

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On the Net:

David Welch’s testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee: http://tinyurl.com/3572dk

State Department’s country reports on terrorism: http://tinyurl.com/38xs29

State Department background on Middle East and North Africa: http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/

State Department background on Africa: http://usinfo.state.gov/af/

CIA World Factbook: http://tinyurl.com/2b2kg9

Background on Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat: http://tinyurl.com/2rg9gc