Mauritania, 2008 — military coup
Event Summary
On 6 August 2008 a military coup in Mauritania ousted President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the country's first democratically elected head of state, only about sixteen months after he took office in the 2007 transition. The coup came within hours of Abdallahi issuing a decree that fired the four top military officers, including General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, commander of the presidential guard, who had been accused of siding with lawmakers against the president. Troops of the presidential security battalion, led by Abdel Aziz, seized the state media and arrested Abdallahi along with Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed el-Waghef and the interior minister.
The junta, calling itself a High Council of State with Abdel Aziz at its head, immediately annulled the president's dismissal decree, called Abdallahi the former president, and promised new elections. Abdallahi was detained at the presidential palace compound. The coup followed months of political conflict, including a parliamentary revolt and disputes over Abdallahi's outreach to Islamists and his appointment of ministers linked to the old Taya government.
It was condemned by the United States, the European Union, and the African Union, which demanded his release and suspended Mauritania. Abdel Aziz went on to win a 2009 election after stepping down to run.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
43508062008- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-435-2008-08-06
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the elected head of state, arrested and detained at the palace compound.
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; arrested or jailed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Powell and Thyne
Financial Times
Wall Street Journal
The Australian
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →