Mauritania warned Monday that the fallout from a military strike against the Islamist extremists controlling northern Mali could be devastating and affect the troubled country's neighbors.

"This country which has for a long time been seen as a model of democracy is like a volcano about to erupt," national assembly president Messaoud Ould Boulkheir said a day after West African leaders gave the green light to sending 3,300 troops to northern Mali to wrest control from the Islamists.

Mauritania's opposition on Monday demanded a thorough investigation into the circumstances of the shooting which wounded President Ould Abdel Aziz at the weekend.

The Coordination of Democratic Opposition (COD), an umbrella organization for around 10 political parties, called in a statement for "the whole truth to come out and be made public on the circumstances of the incident."

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was admitted to a French military hospital on Sunday after being shot and wounded when soldiers "accidentally" fired on his convoy near the capital Nouakchott.

The 55-year-old president was taken to Percy hospital in the suburbs of Paris for treatment after undergoing an operation at home to remove a bullet following Saturday's shooting.

Mauritania and Algeria have called for dialogue in a bid to reach a political solution to the six-month-old crisis in neighboring Mali, after ruling out sending troops there to battle Islamist militia.

"Both countries agree on the importance of dialogue for the emergence of political solutions to the crisis in Mali," Abdelkader Messahel, Algeria's minister for Maghreb and African affairs, said in Nouakchott late Sunday.

Mauritania's president said Wednesday that the killing of nine Mauritanians by soldiers in neighboring Mali last week was an "odious crime", but stressed it had caused no diplomatic rift.

"This odious crime was committed because of the difficult political and security circumstances our brotherly neighbor is experiencing," President Ould Abdel Aziz said, referring to the Islamist takeover of Mali's north.

Mauritania on Monday accused the Malian army of perpetrating a "barbaric massacre" after the shooting in central Mali of 16 unarmed Muslim preachers, including eight Mauritanians.

The Mauritanian government denounced "the cruelty of this unjustifiable collective murder of unarmed, innocent preachers by armed men dressed in the uniform of the regular army", calling the shooting "a barbaric massacre".

A Lebanese delegation interrogated Moammar Gadhafi’s spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi in Mauritania on Wednesday ahead of his extradition to Libya, a well-informed source said.

Senussi, Gadhafi's brother-in-law and feared former right-hand man, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and Lebanese authorities believe he might have information about the 1978 disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr and his two companions while on a visit to Libya.

Mauritanian authorities have handed over Moammar Gadhafi's ex-spy chief to Libya nearly five months after he was arrested for entering the country illegally, state television reported Wednesday.

"Mauritanian authorities hand over ex-Libyan spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi to Libya," read a newsflash on the screen written in Arabic.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour is in Mauritania for talks with top officials on the possibility of meeting with slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s ex-spy chief in his efforts to reveal the fate of Imam Moussa al-Sadr, An Nahar daily reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said that Mansour and his accompanying delegation that includes a member of the committee following up Sadr’s disappearance will hold talks with Mauritanian officials on Sunday and Monday for a possible meeting with Abdullah al-Senussi.

Mauritania's president on Monday ruled out extraditing Abdullah al-Senussi before the feared ex-spy chief for Moammar Gadhafi faces trial in Mauritania for illegal entry.

"Senussi has problems with Mauritania's judiciary and has to face court for entering Mauritania under a false identity," President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said overnight during a local forum in the town of Atar.