MAURITANIA'S AZIZ MAKES LIGHT OF ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

October 14, 2012

No sooner had the transitional government in Mali received the good news regarding the UN resolution that paved the way for a combined military offensive against the extremists's stranglehold of the north, than its neighbour feels the backlash.

Late yesterday, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania, was shot in an ambush by some his own forces, as his motorcade was returning to the capital, Nouakchott, from a visit to his ranch in Toueila. He was wounded in his abdomen and was immediately flown to France for treatment. The bizarre thing about the incident is that, despite his condition, the president was keen to make a public statement - condemning his assailants, one would assume... but no, a statement dismissing the whole thing as "an accident". It is difficult to see how, unless perhaps Halloween comes early in Mauritania and Mr Aziz was dressed as Count Duckula and mistaken for legitimate game. More likely, he is trying to diffuse a potentially explosive situation.

President Aziz is no friend of the extremists. He overthrew Mauritania's first democratically elected president, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, a few months after he was inaugurated in August 2008, because he had reached out to the fundamentalists. A year later, however, Mr Aziz was legitimately elected president, having resigned from transitional office a few months earlier. That President Aziz should be targeted by moderates or the enemies of Mali would come as no surprise, as a weakened Mauritania is just what the extremists would need. Hence Mr Aziz's desperate attempt to make light of yesterday's incident.

The news is still sketchy, although it seems that the worst has been avoided. If anything the attack may have backfired, showing Mauritania in a stronger position that expected.