Ret. 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, a few days after the death in an airplane crash of the previous prime minister, Col. Ahmed Ould Bouceif, with whom he had seized power for the CMSN just a month earlier, from Col. Mustafa Ould Salek and the CRMN. In January 1980 he seized power from Ould Salek's successor as head of state, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly. He continued to also hold the position of Prime Minister until December of that year, when a civilian, Sid Ahmed Ould Bneijara, was appointed to the post. His reign was marked by severe political turbulence, as Mauritania extracted itself from the war with the Polisario Front — started by Ould Daddah in 1975 — and his regime faced a number of coup attempts and military intrigues. On March 16, 1981 a coup attempt against Haidalla failed,. Haidalla accused Morocco of being behind the coup, which Morocco denied, and in the next month Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was appointed Prime Minister. Another attempted coup was allegedly sponsored by Libya. In March 1984, Haidallah took the office of Prime Minister again, replacing Taya, in a move to strengthen his personal power. On December 12, however, Taya ousted Haidallah in a coup while the