A military source told AFP the car was spotted 12 kilometres (eight miles) from the southern entrance to Nouakchott early on Wednesday morning where it was headed to "carry out attacks."

The army shelled the vehicle, one of three it had been looking for since Saturday after a tip off they had crossed into Mauritania from Mali through the southeast Nema region.

"The three terrorists on board were destroyed by the blast. Their ripped-up bodies are difficult to identify," said the source.

Nine soldiers were injured by flying debris from the explosion which was so strong it was heard in several districts of the capital.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) was quick to claim the foiled attack, and a spokesman told private online Nouakchott News Agency (ANI) the group was targeting the country's president.

"The car bomb which exploded on Tuesday night was part of an operation to assassinate Aziz," the spokesman said, speaking from northern Mali.

However according to the spokesman there were only two occupants in the vehicle and it was they who set off the bomb as the military approached.

The spokesman said the operation involved "members of different nationalities including two Mauritanians who are veterans in the organisation."

He added, "The operation will be authenticated by those who carried it out" in a videotape to be released later.

President Aziz has visited the wounded who are all part of the presidential guard battalion.

On Tuesday the gendarmerie arrested three occupants of a second vehicle carrying explosives that they had intercepted.

The third has not yet been found.

On Saturday, a suspect vehicle approached the barracks at Nema, before fleeing after warning shots were fired.

Mauritania is one of the countries worst affected by AQMI which operates in a massive desert zone spanning Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Nigeria where it carries out attacks, kidnapping of foreigners and trafficking.

In August last year, troops at Nema shot at a suicide bomber as he tried to drive a car packed with explosives at the barracks, sparking a "big explosion" which caused heavy damage, slightly injuring two soldiers.

AQMI claimed responsibility for that attack.

In July last year, Mauritanian troops raided AQMI bases in neighbouring Mali in a bid to foil attacks planned against their barracks.

French troops joined one such operation to try to rescue 78-year-old French hostage Michel Germaneau. Although they killed seven AQMI members in the raid, the group subsequently announced that it had killed Germaneau in revenge.

On January 7, AQMI members kidnapped two young Frenchmen from a restaurant in Niamey, the Niger capital. They died the following day near the border with Mail as troops from Niger and France tried to rescue them.

The group still holds five French hostages, a Togolese and a Madagascan, abducted last September from a uranium mine in northern Niger.

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