DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
Soldiers in Mauritania seized President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, his prime minister and the interior minister on Aug. 6, after Abdallahi dismissed senior army officers earlier in the day. Here are some key facts about Abdallahi:
* Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, 70, asked Prime Minister Yahya Ahmed El Waghef to form a new cabinet earlier this month after the premier resigned with his government over a parliamentary revolt.
* This presented Abdallahi with his first major political crisis since he won 2007 elections marking the return of civilian rule to the West Saharan Islamic state. Abdallahi had taken over from a military junta that had ruled since it toppled President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in a bloodless coup in 2005.
* Abdallahi, who belonged to the white Moorish elite which traditionally ruled the largely desert nation, was born in 1938 and studied in Dakar in Senegal and also Grenoble and Paris, qualifying in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry.
* Abdallahi was minister of finance in one previous administration and minister of fishing under 21-year ruler Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya. He fell out with Taya in 1987 and spent six months under house arrest.
* When narrowly elected in 2007, after a runoff between Abdallahi and chief rival Ahmed Ould Daddah, he was seen by some as a coalition candidate — supported by a group of 18 parties along with Taya's former party.
