Army overthrows Mauritania govt

The government of Mauritania was overthrown by an Army coup today.

Army officers announced a new junta was in control of the west African nation which will be led by the head of the presidential guard.

The coup took place after the president and prime minister fired the country’s top four military officials.

A brief announcement read over state television said the new “state council” will be led by presidential guard chief general Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. It gave no other details.

President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was being held by renegade soldiers at the presidential palace in Nouakchott, according to a presidential spokesman. Soldiers also detained Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef.

State radio and television went off air and witnesses said soldiers were deployed throughout the capital.

Straddling the western edge of the Sahara desert, Arab-dominated Mauritania, with a population of 3.4 million, has seen more than 10 coups or attempted coups since independence from France in 1960.

While most of its people live on about £2.50 a day, Mauritania became Africa’s newest oil producer after reserves were discovered in 2006.

Mr Abdallahi’s civilian government took control from a military junta, which seized power in a 2005 coup and stepped down after 2007 elections.

The president had been under pressure for weeks from politicians who accused him of corruption.

The 2005 coup, which saw colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall seize power bloodlessly and declare himself president, was widely popular, for many Mauritanians had grown tired of the 21-year rule of former dictator Maaoya Sid’Ahmed Ould Taya.

Although no junta members ran in the 2007 election, rumours said some in the military were unhappy at being barred from the race.

Al Qaida linked terror groups have also been active in the country, launching sporadic attacks on the military and other targets. Mauritania blamed the 2007 Christmas Eve murders of four French tourists on a terror group allied with al Qaida.

The attacks prompted French organisers to cancelled this year’s Dakar Rally and with it the pride and foreign currency it brought to the country.