... December 1984 - After a number of coup attempts, Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya seizes power and proclaims himself president. Almost two years later, Taya imposes sharia law.
January 1992 - Taya is elected president with nearly 63 percent of the vote under a 1991 constitution permitting multiple political parties, but opposition candidates denounce the victory as fraudulent.
-- Taya is re-elected in 1997 and 2003 after another coup attempt in June that year.
August 2005 - The army seizes power to end Taya's regime, and says it plans to rule for up to two years ...
March 2007 - Former minister Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi wins a presidential run-off poll with 52.85 percent of the vote defeating his rival, opposition figure Ahmed Ould Daddah. Abdallahi was sworn in on April 19 ...
August 2008 - Presidential guardsmen seize Abdallahi in a coup after he sacked several top army officers.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL6319093Some news from Mauritania earlier in this century:
A Volunteer reports on the coup attempt in Mauritania
Sunday, June 15, 2003 ...
Modestan witnesses coup attempt
By KRISTEN WEAVER
Published: June 15, 2003, 08:25:08 AM PDT
NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania ...
Adel called to say that the fighting was between the ruling Moor population and a disgruntled faction of Moors embracing a more political form of Islam. This group wasn't happy about the president's decision to arrest some imams who had been talking politics in the mosques since the war in Iraq broke out and the problems between Palestine and Israel heightened ...
Wednesday ...
A young Pulaar woman said that many of her family and friends were disappointed that the coup didn't take hold. She told them the religion the rebels practice isn't the real Islam, and although her friends may not like the current regime, they sure wouldn't want what the rebels would consider "Islamic." She thinks Mauritania will make more of an effort to keep its own more-liberal forms of Islam intact ...
... The story we filed on June 10 as the coup began: US troops sent to Mauritania to evacuate US Nationals if necessary ...
In a letter to congressional leaders, Bush said 35 US military personnel were in Liberia, where rebel forces opposed to the government of President Charles Taylor were in the vicinity of the US Embassy in Monrovia.
In addition, an evacuation force of 34 US troops were on the way to Nouakchott, Mauritania, where a coup attempt had just taken place. The troops were expected to arrive tomorrow ...
http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/2629/2014228.htmlUS search for Qaeda turns to Algeria
Country is seen as recruiting hub
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
March 11, 2004
... After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Washington stepped up military assistance to Algiers in its 12-year civil war against Islamic extremist groups. The US military involvement is also part of a larger US antiterrorism campaign in the vast, desolate Sahel region of North Africa -- which touches the nations of Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad ...
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/03/11/us_search_for_qaeda_turns_to_algeria/More Than 1,000 U.S. Troops Ready to Travel to Africa for Flintlock 05' Exercise
June 6, 2005
By Charlie Coon
... Troops from the seven nations will be thrown into a crisis to solve. In addition to Senegal, the participating nations are Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Algeria and Tunisia ...
http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,SS_060605_Africa,00.htmlTERRORISM: U.S. TROOPS DEPLOYED IN MAURITANIA
Noukchott, 10 June (AKI) - Following the recent slaying of 17 government soldiers in a terrorist attack on a military base in northern Mauritania, the United States has sent a contingent of 2,000 soldiers, as well as helicopters, to the area, the United Arab Emirates daily 'Al-Kalheej' reported on Friday. The US troops will use military bases set up in the desert in Mauritania and Mali three years ago as part of the war on terror ...
http://politicsinternational.web-log.nl/politicsinternational/2005/08/terrorism_us_tr.htmlposted August 3, 2005 at 12:41 p.m.
Mauritania's 'pro-US' president overthrown
Soldiers seized control of the capital ending 'the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime.'
By Matthew Clark | csmonitor.com
Armed forces in the northwest African nation of Mauritania have seized control of the state radio and television station, as well as main routes in the capital, Nouakchott, in what sources are calling coup d'etat ...
Rebel soldiers in the former French colony came close to toppling Taya in June 2003 before loyalist forces regained control, and the government says it foiled two more attempts in 2004, reports BBC.
Taya himself took power in a bloodless coup in 1984, and has since been reelected three times in elections opponents claim were fraudulent.
In recent years he has "made enemies among Islamists in the country," reports BBC ...
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0803/dailyUpdate.htmlMy! we do seem to have had US troops there frequently in recent years!
2003: a coup attempt, with US troops fortunately present to protect US citizens
2004: We step up our military ties with Mauritania
Summer 2005 was interesting. June 6: our troops are heading off to train Mauritanians just in case of an emergency. June 6: my goodness! there's an emergency and thousands of US troops head into to Mauritania, luckily able to use bases they had set up earlier. And then in August: a coup!
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