Residents of Mauritania’s capital city celebrated in the streets after loyalist troops crushed an attempted coup against the pro-Western president of this Islamic republic. “Viva Maaouiya, viva Maaouiya,” they shouted as they drove through downtown Nouakchott blasting their horns and waving portraits of President Maaouiya Ould Taya, after fresh fighting that had broken out at dawn in the northwest African city fizzled out. The president later went on state radio, the first time he had addressed the nation since the putsch was launched early Sunday, around 3:00 pm (1500 GMT) to say the bid by “officers of the national army” had been quashed. His government, which last month launched a crackdown on Islamic militants, had already announced overnight that the putsch had been put down. Full Story
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