Coup attempt in Mauritania

2005-08-03 15:14

Nouakchott - Mauritanian troops led by presidential guard members took over on Wednesday the armed forces headquarters, state radio and television buildings in the capital Nouakchott in a coup d'etat.

Later an AFP correspondent heard heavy weapons fire in the almost deserted city, but its immediate cause was not known, while a military source said a number of senior officers had been arrested.

The troops had moved into the buildings from 05:00 and also blocked off access to the presidential palace and government ministers, while President Maaouyia Ould Taya was in Saudi Arabia for the funeral of King Fahd.

All state media broadcasts were interrupted and no announcement had been made by the putschists several hours after their takeover.

Heavy security

Military vehicles equipped with heavy weaponry and anti-aircraft guns took up positions in the capital.

Five blasts were heard at 10:15 near the centre of the city, whose streets were deserted apart from a handful of vehicles and pedestrians.

A military source said "several senior officers" had been arrested but could not say if they had been detained by loyalists or rebels.

In June 2003 a bloody uprising failed to unseat Ould Taya, and was followed in August and September of last year by two more alleged coup attempts.

Ould Taya, who seized power himself in a bloodless coup in 1984, is a strong ally of the United States at the head of the northwest African country, which sits on an estimated one billion barrels of oil and 30 billion cubic metres of natural gas.

He was elected president first in 1992, again in 1997 and for a third time in November last year in an exercise condemned as a "masquerade" by the opposition.

Pointing fingers at Islamists

His government recently cracked down on Islamist radicals, accusing them of links to terrorism and extremist groups in neighbouring Algeria.

In May the authoritative International Crisis Group said Nouakchott had seized on the US-led struggle against terrorism as a way to legitimise its denial of democratic rights.

In a follow-up to a March report that called Washington's militaristic approach to the terror challenge in northwest Africa "counterproductive", the Brussels-based think tank said the demonisation of Islamists in mostly Muslim Mauritania could be a "very costly mistake".

The 2003 coup attempt collapsed after a 36-hour gun battle with loyalist soldiers at a military barracks near Nouakchott.

Its mastermind Saleh Ould Henenna, a former army major, told at his trial the country's deep racial and ethnic divisions were the impetus behind his bid to oust Ould Taya, who has ruled with an iron fist since 1984.

He called for "a political act of salvation for the Mauritanian people".

Life sentences were imposed in absentia on Mohamed Ould Salek and Mohamed Ould Cheikhna, the founder of an exiled band of renegade military officers known since June 2003 as Knights of Change.

- AFP