NOUAKCHOTT, Aug 29: Two colonels of the Mauritanian national guard and five other military officers arrested after a failed coup in the African state this month, were released from detention on Sunday, officials said.

The released officers were among 31 people arrested following the foiled plot on August 9, said a military source who did not wish to be identified. They said later they had been discharged from custody without explanation. Nor was anything known about the date of those remaining in detention under investigation by a military committee of enquiry.

Colonel Sidi Ould Riha, commander of Mauritania's national gendarmerie, has accused another African state Burkina Faso, together with Libya, of supporting the coup plotter. The two countries have denied these allegations.

Hamoud Ould Abdi, communications minister of Mauritania on Saturday called on Libya and another African state Burkina Faso to hand over suspects he claimed both countries were still backing following a failed coup in Mauritania.

He claimed Burkina Faso was the "armed wing of Libya in the (west African) region, as both Togo and Ivory Coast testify." Some observers in Nouakchott have said the coup attempt, allegedly timed to coincide with a trip to France by the president, was a hostile response by Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to Mauritania's diplomatic ties to Israel. -AFP