NOUAKCHOTT, MAURITANIA - Six suspected members of Al-Qaeda's North African wing arrested late last month in the Mauritanian desert were freed Wednesday while a seventh remains in detention, a judicial source told AFP.

The source said three Malians and three Mauritanians apprehended in the desert near the border with Mali and Algeria had been released 'after an in-depth inquiry' into their alleged membership of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

The seventh, a Mauritanian businessman, remained in police detention.

'The men were armed, they numbered seven and they were travelling in vehicles that included a truck used by AQIM terrorists,' a senior official in the security services said late September.

The arrests took place near Lemgheity, where in June 2005 an attack by the group - then known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat - left 15 Mauritanian soldiers dead.

AQIM claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack near the French embassy in Mauritania's capital Nouakchott on August 8 in which the perpetrator - a young Mauritanian - was killed and three people were injured.

On June 23, an American living in Mauritania was shot and killed in broad daylight in the capital. That incident was also claimed by AQIM and several alleged perpetrators have been jailed.