NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - One of the alleged leaders behind coup attempts against the Mauritanian government last month and in June 2003, former major Saleh Ould Hanena, has been arrested, sources close to the security services said.
Ould Hanena, who has been described as the organizer of the attempts to oust President Maaouiya Ould Taya, was arrested in Rosso not far from the border with Senegal.
Authorities declined to confirm the arrest.
Since officials announced late last month that the security services had foiled a coup attempt -- the third in 15 months -- and seized a large cache of assault weapons, a hunt has been mounted for Ould Hanena, with his picture regularly broadcast on television and roadblocks set up across the country.
Ould Hanena, who was dishonorably discharged from the armed forces in 2000, has also been accused of being one of the principal organizers of a June 2003 putsch in which 15 people were killed in a blazing gun battle that lasted 36 hours before loyalist forces put it down.
Authorities said in August they uncovered a plot by a group of officers to seize power when President Ould Taya was travelling abroad.
The mainly Muslim country, which is the size of Spain and France combined, has over the past several years moved to strengthen ties with the United States, offering Mauritania as a base for a major anti-terrorism military program stretching across northwest Africa known as the Pan-Sahel initiative.
The Taya government also established relations with Israel in 1999, much to the outrage of the opposition and the growing population of Islamists in the country of 2.7 million people.