Mauritania's ousted civilian president, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, formally resigned as part of a power-sharing deal with the nation's military rulers June 27—ending a stalemate that for weeks jeopardized the return to civil rule. Supporters of Abdallahi and coup leader Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz shouted at each other outside the conference center where the civilian president stepped down, but there was no violence. (VOA, June 27)

Gunmen ambushed and killed 24 Algerian paramilitary police in the country's deadliest insurgent attack in nearly a year, the local newspaper Echorouk reported June 18. The militants attacked the previous evening with roadside bombs and rifles when the police passed in a convoy along a highway about 180 kilometers east of the capital. When they left the scene of the attack they took with them six police off-road vehicles as well as weapons and police uniforms.

Malian security forces clashed with a group of suspected al-Qaeda militants June 17 in the northern Tessalit region, killing several people, a senior military source told Reuters. The armed forces sent out patrols to try to track down the suspected militants around Mali's northern border region with Algeria after the assassination this month of the security chief of the Timbuktu region.

A power-sharing deal between Mauritania's military junta and opposition is being delayed by disagreement over the composition of an interim government. Under the deal, signed June 5 after lengthy talks involving international mediators in Senegal, the transitional Government of National Unity was to ave taken effect on the 13th—with the civilian president toppled in last August's military coup as its head. But Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi must first formally resign as president, and he wants to do so in the office he was driven from by Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Niger's President Mamadou Tandja held peace talks with Tuareg rebel leaders for the first time, meeting for two hours in the northern town of Agadez. President Tandja told reporters he had offered an amnesty if the three rebel groups laid down their weapons. The rebels have not yet reacted to Tandja's offer. However, before the meeting, the rebel Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) said it wants to see more Tuaregs in the army, increased autonomy and a greater share of revenues from uranium operations in the region.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of the long-ruling National Liberation Front (NLF) won 90.24% of the vote to secure his third mandate on April 9, in elections marred by terror attacks despite tight security throughout the country. A bomb exploded at a polling station in Imeghenine, near Boumerdes, and a police officer was killed by a roadside bomb in Tebessa. At least nine polling stations in eastern Algeria were vandalized and ballot boxes set on fire, while in Bouira, in upper Kabylie, streets were reportedly blocked to prevent ballots from being delivered to polling stations.

The government of Libya has released two men convicted in 2007 of planning to overthrow the government and meeting with a foreign official, Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced March 10. Jamal al-Haji and Faraj Humaid were arrested as part of a larger group in Tripoli in February 2007, in advance of a planned demonstration in the city's Martyrs Square commemorating the deaths of 11 people during a 2006 clash between protesters and police. The nine other men arrested as part of the so-called Boufayed Group were released by the end of 2008—including supposed ringleader Idris Boufayed, who suffers from lung cancer. HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson called the men's release "a particularly welcome step in light of the Libyan authorities' stated initiative of breaking with the past."

President Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali vowed a harsh crackdown on the Tuareg guerillas Jan. 20. "All the means, I repeat, all the operational means will be mobilized because we cannot put a price on the securing our country," said Toure, in a speech broadcast to mark the army's 48th anniversary celebrations. Two days later, the Malian government said its forces had routed Tuareg rebels from a base in the north of the country. "Following an offensive by the Malian army, the base of Ibrahim Ag Bahanga located in Boureissa was destroyed. The toll on the side of the armed groups [Tuaregs] was 31 dead... [O]n the side of the national army, no losses," the statement said.