Identity of coup plotters still a mystery

Life gradually returned to normal in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott on Tuesday following an attempted coup against President Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya which was put down after two days of heavy fighting. But the identity of the coup plotters who shelled the presidential palace and managed to put state radio and television off the air for 24 hours, remained a mystery. "Officially nothing has been said. We only know that it was officers and rank-and-file officers from a unit of the army", one source at the state-owned Mauritanian Information Agency (AMI) told IRIN in Cote d'Ivoire by telephone on Tuesday. "We don't know who are those behind the coup, nor their motivations", said a diplomat at the French embassy. However, many reports emerging from this desert country of less than three million people, mentioned army colonel Saleh Ould Hanena, who was drummed out of the army for his suspected involvement in a previous coup attempt, as one of the likely ringleaders. "The name you hear mentioned most is that of former colonel Saleh Ould Hanena, the former head of overseas training at army headquarters," one diplomat said. Ould Taya, who came to power through a military coup of his own making 19 years ago, confirmed that the uprising had been quashed in a radio broadcast to the nation on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday shops and businesses and some government offices reopened and most diplomatic missions resumed work. But no one was answering the phones at the presidential palace, which was raked by machine gun fire and blasted with tank shells during the coup attempt. IRIN's attempts to reach several ministries also drew a blank. Army patrols were much in evidence in the streets as the government sought to arrest any mutineers still at large. The government confirmed that the army chief staff, Mohamed Lemine Ould N'Diayane, a trusted aide of the president had been killed in combat. But no details were given of other casualties in the fighting. A source at the state news agency said the insurgents had freed all the prisoners at Nouakchott jail. Some analysts have suggested that the coup was linked to a recent crackdown by Ould Taya on Islamic militants and opposition leaders in general in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Over the past month, dozens of Islamic radicals and opposition activists have been arrested and the government closed down the Arabic-language weekly newspaper Erraya, accusing it of subversion. Other analysts have speculated that the coup attempt was motivated more by personality clashes within Mauritania's military establishment When Ould Taya first came to power, he developed close links with the deposed Iraqi leader Sadaam Hussein. But he distanced himself from Baghdad after Iraq's 1991 invasion of Kuwait and developed close links with the US and Israel instead. In 1999, Mauritania became only the third member of the Arab League to establish full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, a move that proved widely unpopular at home. Western diplomats said this latest attempt to depose Ould Taya came as a surprise, but it failed because the insurgents were poorly organised and most of the military establishment had remained loyal to the 68-year-old president. Over the past decade he has legalised opposition parties, but has held them on a short leash. They boycotted the last presidential election in 1997 in protest at Ould Taya's iron fisted rule and a question mark remains over their participation in the next presidential vote, which is due in November. "While it is difficult to call a coup an insignificant event, it should not set back any of the government's efforts", one senior western diplomat said.