Security forces in Mauritania have detained five male relatives of former President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya for plotting to destabilise the country days before a national referendum.
The men had been in contact with Taya in Qatar, where he lives in exile after being overthrown last August in a bloodless coup, and were plotting to derail a return to democracy in the Islamic Republic, the ruling military junta said.
"A group of people nostalgic for the past are trying to impede the process of democratisation that is under way. They want to sabotage Sunday's referendum," said Sidi Ould Domane, spokesman for the head of the 17-member military council.
The junta's coup ended two decades of authoritarian rule by Taya, winning widespread support and bringing jubilant residents onto sand-blanketed streets in the impoverished country, which straddles black and Arab West Africa on the edge of the Sahara.
The military council installed a civilian interim government and pledged a brief transition leading to presidential polls. Part of the process is a referendum, due on Sunday, on changes to the constitution.
Shortly before taking up an asylum offer in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Taya urged soldiers to resist the country's new leadership and vowed to return, though his words were not taken seriously by many residents or officials in Nouakchott.
The men arrested - who included the former head of the navy, his businessman son, a former ambassador to the United Nations and a former senior army official - had remained in contact with Taya since his ouster, officials said.
"They are cousins of Ould Taya who were plotting to destabilise the country and take it into anarchy," a source close to the military council told Reuters by telephone.
"They have been in contact with Ould Taya in Qatar and with his son ... They are people with means. They are trying to act against the Mauritanian people ahead of the referendum," the source said on condition of anonymity.
Sunday's referendum paves the way for presidential polls now due in March 2007, five months ahead of the timetable the junta originally set after taking power.
The referendum will be the first vote in the mostly desert, oil-producing nation since the coup and the beginning of a process which also includes legislative elections in November and senatorial polls in January.
Western nations and other African leaders initially condemned the seizure of power last August but have said they will support the military rulers if they live up to their promise of organising free and fair elections.