August 07, 2008	Thursday	Sha’aban 4, 1429

NOUAKCHOTT (Mauritania), Aug 6: Mauritanian soldiers overthrew the elected president in a coup on Wednesday and announced the formation of a military ruling council in the northwest African state.

Soldiers seized President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi at his palace after he sacked senior army officers during a political crisis in Mauritania, one of the continent’s newest oil producers.

“The security agents of the BASEP (Presidential Security Battalion) came to our home around 9.20am and took away my father,” Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, the president’s daughter, told Reuters.

The African Union and European Union condemned the coup in the largely desert country of 3 million, which straddles black and Arab Africa.

A “State Council” led by one of the sacked officers, Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, said Abdallahi was now “former president” and annulled his previous decree sacking Abdelaziz and the heads of the army and Gendarmerie.

The communique, described as the council’s “Statement No 1”, was broadcast by Gulf-based Arabic television stations.

Abdallahi was elected last year and took over from a military junta that had toppled the authoritarian President Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya in a bloodless coup in 2005.

“We are being kept in the house, forbidden to leave. There are guards posted in the kitchen, the bedrooms, even the showers. The phones have been cut. It is certainly a coup,” Abdallahi’s daughter said.

A presidency official who declined to be named said the prime minister and interior minister had also been arrested and taken to an unknown destination.

Soldiers had arrested new military chiefs appointed by Abdallahi earlier on Wednesday, Arabiya reported.

Soldiers on jeeps with heavy guns stood guard outside government buildings.

—Reuters