U.S. ally Mauritania briefly arrested a prominent Islamic opposition figure Wednesday, two days after the government said it had foiled an alleged army-led coup plot linked to a threat last month by extremists to strike Mauritania "with an iron fist" over its ties with Israel. Police arrested prominent Islamist Mohamed Jemil Ould Mansour, secretary-general of an opposition coalition that includes Islamists. They searched his home and released him after several hours. Ruling party officials have blamed army officers, civilians and Islamist extremists in the alleged plot to topple the 20-year-old regime of President Maaoya Sid Ahmed Ould Taya. Official accounts said the plotters were planning to assassinate Taya as he left the country Saturday for France. They said simultaneous bombings were planned to sow disarray.
Opposition politicians, Islamic leaders and some Western diplomats were skeptical about the alleged plot. Some said the claims of a plot were simply a pretext by Taya's government to crack down harder on the opposition in the oil-rich nation on the western edge of the Sahara. Authorities have made an unspecified number of arrests. Opposition politician Salek Sidi Mahmoud on Wednesday called the plot "very probably a fabrication." The government "is trying to liquidate those officers who maybe are hostile to the economic, political and social disasters in Mauritania," he said.
| By arresting the guys who want to turn it from a kinda secular failed state into an Islamic failed state? Spare me. |
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