President detained in Mauritania coup

Troops overthrew Mauritania's president in a military coup on Wednesday after he tried to sack senior army officers accused of being behind a political crisis destabilising the country. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was arrested as troops rolled through the capital Nouakchott and took over the presidential palace and the prime minister's office. They chased staff from the headquarters of state radio and television, though there was no sign of fighting in the city. A statement read on public radio said the coup was led by the head of the presidential guard, General Ould Abdel Aziz, who had been sacked earlier in the morning.

The coup leaders formed a Military State Council and immediately annulled the army appointments made by the president, according to an information ministry statement broadcast on the radio. "The president has just been arrested by a commando, who came to fetch him, arrested him here and took him away," the president's daughter, Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, told Radio France International from the presidential palace in Nouakchott. "This is a real coup d'etat," she said.

Abdallahi said armed men had occupied the presidency and that she was being prevented from leaving the building, but that she had not heard shots fired. The president's whereabouts were unknown, while Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf was taken to an army barracks near the presidency, security sources said. A spokesman for the ousted president told AFP that the coup was in response to a presidential decree several high ranking army leaders including General Abdel Aziz. The president "issued a decree naming several new officers as the head of the presidential guard, the head of the armed forces and the head of the national guard. "These officers, three generals, refused to accept the presidential decree and are rebelling against the constitutional order," the spokesman Abdoulaye Mahmadou Ba said.

The capital of the nation of 3.1 million people was reported to be calm, with little evidence of the turmoil, witnesses said. The coup came less than six months after Abdallahi came to power in elections hailed as a model of democracy for Africa, following a three-year transition after a bloodless coup in August 2005.

Mauritania has been facing a political crisis and on Monday 48 MPs walked out on the ruling party less than two weeks after a vote of no confidence in the government prompted a cabinet reshuffle. Renegade lawmakers criticised Abdallahi's exercise of "personal power", adding that he had "disappointed the hopes of Mauritanians," a spokesman for the group said on Monday. A decree read out on national radio early Wednesday replaced General Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed as chief of the army, as well as sacking Abdel Aziz as head of the presidential guard. Both generals were members of the transition council which ushered in the elections which Abdallahi won in 2007. Political observers in Nouakchott said the two generals were accused of being behind the mass walkout of ruling party MPs on Monday. The breakaway MPs said they will form a new party to seek a change of direction in the country, which imports more than 70 percent of its food and has been hard hit by the global food crisis.

The Mauritanian president last month threatened to dissolve parliament after MPs filed a motion of no confidence in his new government, which then resigned. A spokesman for the MPs who walked out said the president was "reaping the fruits of his bad decisions". "By his decision to oust the generals he attacked the army head on, who reacted by deposing him" deputy Sidi Mohamed Ould Maham told AFP. The largely desertified country has a history of coups since its independence from France in 1960.

Mauritania was shaken between December 2007 and February 2008 by three attacks by extremists linked to Al-Qaeda which left seven people dead including four French tourists. The attacks caused the organisers of the 2008 Dakar rally to cancel the race, which usually crosses the Mauritanian deserts.

Source: AFP