The African Union today suspended the membership of Mauritania after yesterday's bloodless military coup deposed President Maaouiya Ould Taya.

The AU Peace and Security Council said that the suspension would remain in place until "constitutional order" is returned to the west African state.

"In light of the coup d’etat that took place on August 3... Mauritania’s participation in all AU activities should be suspended until the restoration of constitutional order in the country," the council said in a statement.

Shops and businesses reopened and traffic was flowing again in Mauritania’s capital today, just a day after a military junta announced it had toppled the desperately poor west African country’s president while he was abroad. The international airport in the capital, Nouakchott, also reopened.

Mauritania's fortunes are expected to be transformed next year when the Australian oil company Woodside is due to start pumping oil for the first time from offshore reserves.

The quick return to calm appeared to suggest there was widespread acceptance of President Taya’s overthrow. Islamic opposition parties celebrated the deposition of a ruler who had looked increasingly to the West, in response to alleged threats from al-Qaeda linked militants with ties to radical groups in Algeria.

"The armed forces have unanimously decided to put an end to the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime under which our people have suffered much over the last several years," the junta statement said. It promised to yield to democratic rule within two years.

The junta, calling itself the Military Council for Justice and Democracy, said that Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall was its president.

This was seen as symbolic of a shift of mood in the country, as Colonel Vall, 55, the national police chief since 1987, was considered a close confidant of Taya for more than two decades and supported him through previous coup attempts.

The junta statement identified 16 other army officers as members. Except for one captain, all are all colonels, the highest rank in the country’s armed forces.

Meanwhile Mr Taya arrived last night in nearby Niger from Saudi Arabia, where he had been attending King Fahd’s funeral. He made no comment to reporters, but the secretary-general of his political party, Boullah Ould Mogueya, said that it wouldn’t recognize "anti-constitutional change".

Mr Taya seized power in a coup in 1984 and dealt ruthlessly with those who opposed him. He has since won two elections, which opponents have either boybotted or dismissed as rigged. He allied his overwhelmingly Muslim nation with the United States in the war on terror, and offended many of his people by opening full diplomatic relations with Israel.

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