President Taya is now in a “safe place”, said his staff

NOUAKCHOTT, June 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As explosions shook the Mauritanian capital again on Monday, June 9, a top government official insisted that a coup attempt had been put down after a day of combat by troops loyal to the northwest African country's president, a rare Arab friend of Israel.

"The last of the putschists have given themselves up," Information Minister Hamoud Ould M'Hamed told Reuters by phone. He did not give further details of the plotters or say where the president was.

There is no word on the fate of President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, who himself came to power in a bloodless 1984 coup. His staff were quoted as saying that Taya would only say that they were in a "safe place". 

A source close to the Mauritanian government told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that "last elements" of putschists have surrendered to forces loyal to President Taya.

The putsch mounted early Sunday, June 8, "has been brought totally under control," and "the last mutineers have surrendered to loyalist forces," said the source.

His statement confirmed reports by the Moroccan news agency Map in Rabat that Salah Ould Hnana, an ex-colonel sacked from the Mauritanian army, had led the coup with backing from accomplices in tank units and the air force.

There were unconfirmed reports that the army chief-of-staff, Colonel Mohammed Lanine Ndiayane, was killed in Sunday's fighting, the BBC News Online reported.

Dissident soldiers stormed the presidency at one point, but reinforcements rolled into the usually sleepy city late on Sunday in at least 100 military vehicles.

Doubts

The Monday blasts, some from around the presidency, cast over the government announcement that an attempted coup had been put down and its leaders arrested.

Fresh fighting broke out in Nouakchott, where a government source said forces loyal to the president had shot at putschists who had mounted the coup.

The forces fired on the mutineers as they tried to leave the national military police headquarters where they had been holed up overnight, the source said.

There is widespread anger in Arab League member Mauritania over Taya's longstanding cooperation with Israel. In 1999, Mauritania became only the third Arab League state to establish full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

A government official said radio and television would resume broadcasting in the early hours of Monday and an official communiqué would be issued "giving all details of the putsch and the putschists."

The interim head of the African Union, Amara Essy, said in a statement the continental grouping "strongly condemned the attempted coup".