Mauritanian President Mohammed Ould Abdulaziz was wounded in the neck as he drove in the capital, Nouakchott, reports emerged early Sunday.
Al Arabiya correspondent said that the president’s guards surrounded the military hospital in Nouakchott as doctors hurried to take the bullet out from his neck.
The correspondent said Abdulaziz was shot after returning back from his farm in the northern of the country to Nouakchott.
No further information is available so far but a government source said that the injury was not severe but “light.”
The Mauritanian official radio station later said that the shooting at the president came by “mistake” from a military checkpoint.
Abdelaziz, a military man, was sworn as the new president of the Saharan country after winning election in July 2009.
But in 2008, he became President of the High Council of State after toppling President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a military coup.
He resigned from that post in April 2009 to take part as a candidate in the July 2009 presidential election which he won.
Mauritania is facing mounting terrorist threats in the Sahel area which has become a safe haven for organized crime and terrorist networks.