Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla
Col. Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah ( Muḥammad Khouna Wald Haidallah) (born 1940) was the head of state of Mauritania (Chairman of the Military Committee for National Salvation, CMSN) from 4 January 1980 to 12 December 1984. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2003 presidential election and the 2007 presidential election. Family background and early career Born in 1940 in the Nouadhibou region (either in then-Spanish Sahara or colonial Mauritania), into a family of the Sahrawi Laaroussien tribe, he passed to secondary education in Rosso near the border to French-administered Senegal. He earned a baccalaureat in science in Dakar, Senegal, in 1961. After joining the Mauritanian army in 1962, he studied in French military colleges, notably Saint-Cyr. After 1975, he commanded forces in the north of Mauritania and Tiris al-Gharbiya (Western Sahara), in the war against Polisario Front guerrillas, notably in the Zouerate region and Bir Moghrein. In 1978, with the country in severe disorder, he participated in a coup d'état that overthrew Mauritanian President Mokhtar Ould Daddah. As a member of the CRMN military junta, he was promoted to the post of Chief of the General Staff. As head of CMSN Haidallah became Prime minister on 31 May 1979,