Junta Takes Power in Mauritania

Army officers staged a coup in Mauritania today, detaining the president, prime minister and interior minister, key members of the country's first freely elected government since gaining independence in 1960. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi is apparently being held by soldiers in the presidential palace in the capital city, Nouakchott. The move came after the president fired the country's top four military officials. General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, former chief of staff of the Mauritanian army and head of the Presidential Guard, was one of the men fired and reportedly now in control.