Mauritania’s president ousted in coup after political feuding

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — Army commanders ousted Mauritania’s first freely elected president in two decades Wednesday after an increasingly bitter political fight over his ties to allies of a reviled former dictator and his overtures to Islamic radicals.

The bloodless coup reflected the internal struggle over how to manage this desperately poor desert nation that straddles the Arab and African worlds and is Africa’s newest, if small-scale, oil producer.

Troubles began early Wednesday when President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi fired the country’s top four generals, reportedly for supporting lawmakers who had accused him of corruption and disagreed with his reaching out to Islamic militants that previous governments cracked down on.

Troops seized state radio and television and announced the formation of a new “state council” led by the commander of the presidential guard, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who was one of the four fired generals.

The junta issued no statement on the motivation for the coup or their plans. Sidi Mohamed Ould Maham, a lawmaker who supported the coup, said leaders would appoint a 14-member interim government to govern for six months and hold elections.

Abdallahi was detained by presidential guard units and held at the palace compound, a grandiose, whitewashed complex in the sandy coastal capital, Nouakchott. His spokesman, Abdoulaye Mamadou Ba, said soldiers also detained Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef.

Much like the nation’s last coup in 2005, the change of power was swiftly condemned by the United States, the European Union and the African Union, which said it would send an envoy to Nouakchott this week.

Last time, the coup was wildly popular in the streets and silently applauded abroad because it ended the 21-year rule of an unpopular dictator, paving the way for the 2007 elections that brought back civilian rule.

The level of popular support is less clear this time, and coup leaders risk real isolation from the international community.