Mauritania’s Govt Overthrown in Military Coup

A military junta has taken power in Mauritania, staging a coup and detaining the country’s president and prime minister early Wednesday. Sources say the soldiers arrested President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf before announcing a new military junta led by the immediate former head of the presidential guard, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. The coup was reportedly triggered off when the president sacked a number of generals, accusing them of fomenting a political crisis that saw the government barely survive a vote of no confidence in parliament a few weeks ago and the defection of 48 legislators from the ruling party earlier this week Abdallahi became president last year, elected to replace a military council that had ruled the country since staging another coup in 2005. [PE]