Mauritania forces stage coup
Thursday, 7 August 2008
NOUAKCHOTT, August 6 (Reuters): Presidential guardsmen seized Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a coup d'etat on Wednesday, the president's daughter Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi said.
"The security agents of the BASEP (Presidential Security Battalion) came to our home around 9.20 (5:20 a.m. EDT) and took away my father," she told Reuters.
Soldiers gathered at the presidential palace after Abdallahi replaced senior army officers earlier on Wednesday during a political crisis in the northwest African country that is one of the continent's newest oil producers.
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.
"The security agents of the BASEP (Presidential Security Battalion) came to our home around 9.20 (5:20 a.m. EDT) and took away my father," she told Reuters.
Soldiers gathered at the presidential palace after Abdallahi replaced senior army officers earlier on Wednesday during a political crisis in the northwest African country that is one of the continent's newest oil producers.
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.