NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — The military junta that overthrew Mauritania’s government last week adopted a law today transferring the power of the presidency to the head of the junta.

The 11-article law announced in a communique confers the rights of the highest office in the country in northwest Africa to the army general who led the Aug. 6 coup.

The statement also claimed the coup was brought on by the deteriorating condition of daily life in Mauritania, the president’s stonewalling of various government institutions, and his firing of the chiefs of the armed forces.

The coup prompted America to cut off more than $20 million in aid. France also has frozen aid to Mauritania, and the European Union has threatened to cut off aid. The African Union suspended Mauritania from the 53-nation body because of the military takeover. The country borders Senegal, Mali, Algeria, and Western Sahara.

Soldiers detained President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, his prime minister, and three other high-ranking officials one hour after the president announced the firing of the country’s top four generals. Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef and the three administration officials were released yesterday, but the president remains under house arrest.

Addressing a rally of several thousand supporters soon after his release yesterday, Mr. Waqef said the president is in good health. “The president thanks you for your untiring fight, your strong fight to restore constitutional order,” the prime minister told the demonstrators.

In another part of town, demonstrators sang chants of praise for the coup leader.

A businessman, Houmey Ould Tangi, an organizer of the pro-coup march, called junta leader General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz “a hero” who “has made it his habit to pull our country out of gridlock.”

The coup came after an increasingly bitter standoff between the army and Mr. Abdallahi, who last year won Mauritania’s first free-and-fair election in more than two decades. That election followed a 2005 coup, which General Aziz also helped orchestrate to oust the country’s reviled dictator.

Then the junta announced that it would hold elections and as a gesture of transparency, the 11 leaders of the 2005 coup barred themselves from running in the race.

In an interview Sunday with The Associated Press, General Aziz refused to rule out running this time in elections the junta promises to organize.

During his 16 months in office, Mr. Abdallahi often clashed with the army leaders, including by opening a dialogue with Islamic militants and by releasing several alleged extremists against the advice of the generals.

The junta has said Mr. Abdallahi angered it by being weak on terrorism, but the president’s daughter described the coup as a simple power grab.

General Aziz had backed Mr. Abdallahi during the 2007 elections, believing he would be rewarded with a large say in matters of state, said daughter Amal Cheikh Abdallahi.

“They thought my father was malleable, that they could dictate things to him. But my father is a strong and firm man,” she said. She also is an official administration spokeswoman.

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Associated Press Writer Rukmini Callimachi in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.