PARIS — The annual Dakar Rally was canceled Friday on the eve of the event due to terrorist threats targeting the cross-continent race.
Government officials from France, home base of the race’s organizers, urged officials to cancel the event after a French family was murdered in Mauritania on Christmas Eve. The slaying of the family of tourists has been blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants.
It is the first time the event has been canceled since its inception 30 years ago, but security was impossible to guarantee over the course of the 5,760-mile trek across the Sahara Desert, which was to include some 550 cars, trucks and motorcycles and some 3,000 people. Eight of its stages were to take place in Mauritania, the home of a terror cell that uses its vast desert as a hideout. Mauritanian officials attempted to increase security for the race within its borders, but were unable to sway race organizers.
“No other decision but the cancellation of the sporting event could be taken,” organizers told the Associated Press.
The Dakar Rally was to start in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday and finish in Dakar, Senegal on Jan. 20.