Tamanrasset originated as the centre of a network of camel caravan trading routes from
Kano,
Lake Chad,
Gao,
Agades and
Zinder. When
Algeria was under French rule, the Catholic priest
Charles de Foucauld built his
hermitage here in 1905; he established the fort by 1915. Foucauld was shot to death outside his Tamanrasset compound by Sermi ag Thora under the command of El Madani ag Soba on 1 December 1916. As a military post, the settlement was named Fort Laperrine, after General
François-Henry Laperrine's death in the desert nearby in 1922. On 1 May 1962, near Ecker, 150 km north of Tamanrasset, there was
an accidental venting of a French underground nuclear test. Due to improper sealing of the shaft, a spectacular flame burst through the concrete cap and radioactive gases and dust were vented into the atmosphere. The plume climbed up to 2600 m high and radiation was detected hundreds of kilometres away. About a hundred French soldiers and officials, including two ministers, were irradiated. The number of contaminated Algerians is unknown. In March 2003
Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashed in the city. In 2010, the oasis town was the site of the Joint Military Staff Committee headquarters for combating
Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb. The four-country Committee (Algeria, Mali, Niger, Mauritania) intends to use Tamanrasset to coordinate their military activity in the Pan-Sahel. ==Climate==