Things are hap­pen­ing rapidly in Mau­ri­ta­nia, started with a coup this morn­ing, issu­ing the “state­ment no 1″ on the Mau­ri­tan­ian TV, chang­ing the Head of the TV because he refused to coop­er­ate with the army chief who staged the coup, and announc­ing a new mil­i­tary junta.

Where are the Americans?

On the 8th of July 2008 [two months ago], Al Hayat news­pa­per pub­lished the fol­low­ing [Eng­lish head­line] :

200 U.S. marines arrived to Atar - Mau­ri­ta­nia for a mis­sion described as a “human­i­tar­ian”, aimed to sup­port the Mau­ri­tan­ian army in relief oper­a­tions and treat­ing patients. When we read the state­ments made by the com­man­der of the Africom Forces Gen­eral William Ward dur­ing his recent tour to Tunisia and Morocco, we real­ized that the Marines mis­sion in Mau­ri­ta­nia is not “human­i­tar­ian” only.

Gen­eral Ward told “Al-Hayat”: “Al-Qaeda dan­ger in North Africa is real” and he stressed on “the estab­lish­ment of long-term coop­er­a­tion» with African coun­tries to ensure greater sta­bil­ity in the continent”.

Wash­ing­ton offered Mau­ri­ta­nia to host the head­quar­ters “Africom”. This offered caused dis­putes between the gov­ern­ment and its oppo­nents, who threat­ened to con­duct demon­stra­tions to show their rejection.

The oppo­si­tion lead­ers dis­cussed the issue directly with Pres­i­dent Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdal­lah, who in his turn much likely can­celed the [Africom] issue.

Despite this, the num­ber of Amer­i­can mil­i­tary arrive to Atar in the north of the coun­try kept esca­lat­ing in the last two months, the U.S. ambas­sador in Nouak­chott Mark M. Boul­ware three times in three months.