Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was deposed by his own guards early Wednesday after he tried to sack senior army officers accused of being behind a political crisis destabilizing the country. A brief announcement read over state television said a new “State Council” will be led by presidential guard chief Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. The coup overthrew the first government to be freely elected in the Arab-dominated northwestern African country in more than 20 years. The new “State Council” immediately annulled Abdallahi's decree sacking Gen. Abdel Aziz and the heads of the army and Gendarmerie, the TV statement said. President Abdallahi was being held by renegade soldiers at the presidential palace in Nouakchott, according to presidential spokesman Abdoulaye Mamadouba. Soldiers also detained Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef, he said. “The security agents of the BASEP (Presidential Security Battalion) came to our home around 9.20 (0920 GMT) and took away my father,” Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, the president's daughter, told Reuters. State radio and television then went off air and witnesses said soldiers were deployed throughout the capital. No violence was immediately reported. The presidential decree early Wednesday named 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,” Mamadouba said. The decree replaced Gen.Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed as chief of the army, as well as sacking Abdelaziz as head of the presidential guard. Both generals were members of the transition council which ushered in the elections which Abdallahi won in 2007. Mauritania has been facing a political crisis and on Monday 48 MPs walked out on Abdallahi's ruling PNDD-ADIL party less than two weeks after a vote of no confidence in the government prompted a cabinet reshuffle. Renegade lawmakers criticized Abdallahi's exercise of “personal power”, adding that he had “disappointed the hopes of Mauritanians,” a spokesman for the group said on Monday. Political observers in Nouakchott said Gen. Ahmed and Abdel Aziz 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 Africa's newest oil-producing country, which imports more than 70 percent of its food and has been hard hit by the global food crisis. Most of its people live on about $5 a day. Oil reserves were discovered in 2006. Abdallahi last month threatened to dissolve parliament after MPs filed a motion of no confidence in his new government, which then resigned. The new government formed excluded the opposition Union of Forces for Progress (UFP) and Islamist Tawassoul parties which had been part of the previous government. Deputy Sidi Mohamed Ould Maham, a spokesman for the MPs who walked out, said Abdallahi was “reaping the fruits of his bad decisions.” Straddling the western edge of the Sahara desert, Mauritania, with a population of 3.4 million, has been wracked by more than 10 coups or attempted coups since independence from France in 1960. Abdallahi won elections last year and took over from a military junta that had ruled since it toppled President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in a bloodless coup in 2005. Taya had ruled for 21 years. Although no junta members ran in the 2007 election, there have been rumors that some in the military were unhappy at being barred from the race. Newspapers also carried stories linking several of the 19 presidential candidates to Taya, now living in exile. 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. In Brussels, the European Commission condemned Wednesday's coup and said the European Union could suspend its cooperation and aid to the country. The United States and France took measures to protect the safety of their nationals living there.
