(CNN) -- Rebel troops took control of Mauritania's presidential palace
in a coup attempt Sunday, and the whereabouts of the Islamic republic's president were unknown, local journalists told CNN.

Mauritania Leader's Fate Uncertain After Coup Bid
Sun June 8, 2003 08:24 PM ET
By Ben Salem
MAURITANIA (Reuters) - Uncertainty hung over the fate of Mauritania's pro-Israel president on Monday after a day of street battles in the capital during an attempted coup in the northwest African country.

Dissident soldiers have seized parts of Nouakchott and at one point on Sunday they stormed the presidency in the most serious threat to President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya since he took power in a bloodless 1984 coup.

But residents saw more than 100 military vehicles on the outskirts of the city late on Sunday and believed they had arrived from the east to support Taya's loyalists. Other reinforcements rolled in from the north.

Split between black Africans and light-skinned Arabs, the almost exclusively Muslim country has recently been gripped by unease over the arrest of dozens of Taya's Islamist opponents.

The Arab president's friendship with Israel finds little favor in the largely desert country, where Saharan sand dunes roll down to the Atlantic coast.

Explosions shook the capital after nightfall, but then gave way to a spell of calm. Both loyalist troops and mutineers were spotted near the center.

State radio has been off the air since a brief announcement on Sunday morning to say that Taya was in full control, though the station was among the targets of looters.