Results from polling stations across Mauritania began to trickle in Sunday but the electoral commission said it wasn't in a position to give an early picture of nationwide trends.

The commission said counting had been delayed in many regions where people were allowed to cast their ballots after the official deadline, adding that definitive results from Saturday's election would be made available "perhaps in the middle of the week."

Mauritanians voted Saturday in nationwide elections overshadowed by a widespread boycott of opposition parties, with all eyes on the performance of an Islamist party allowed to take part for the first time.

The mainly-Muslim republic, a former French colony on the west coast of the Sahara desert, is seen by the West as strategically important in the fight against Al-Qaida-linked groups within its own borders, as well in neighboring Mali and across Africa's Sahel region.

Thousands of Mauritanians rallied in the capital Nouakchott on Wednesday to protest against nationwide elections later this month that have been dismissed by the opposition as a sham.

"Unilateral elections kill democracy," the demonstrators chanted, as they marched through the city center, an Agence France Presse reporter saw. No incidents were reported during the protest, which was closely watched by security forces.

Amid new tensions over Western Sahara, a U.N. envoy said Wednesday there was still no hope of convening face-to-face talks on the disputed territory between Morocco and pro-independence rebels.

Morocco, which occupies the territory, recalled its ambassador to Algiers as the U.N. Security Council held talks on Western Sahara. Algeria is a key backer of the Polisario Front independence movement.

One of Mauritania's main opposition parties announced on Monday it was pulling out of the west African nation's November 23 elections despite an earlier pledge to take part.

The left-leaning Union of the Forces of Progress (UFP) - part of a coalition of opposition parties - said the boycott would thwart the "sham election" being planned by President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Mauritania's government on Monday held its first talks with the opposition after years of dispute in a bid to organize November elections, its participants told Agence France Presse.

The west African nation had to postpone the elections originally planned for October after a coalition of opposition parties said it would "boycott this electoral masquerade" in a bid to cause the vote to fail.

Al-Qaida's north African branch has released a video purporting to show seven kidnapped Westerners, the Mauritanian news agency ANI reported, footage France's foreign ministry deemed "credible.”

The hostages are four Frenchmen kidnapped from a uranium compound in northern Niger exactly three years ago along with a Dutchman, a Swede and a South African who were abducted from Timbuktu in northern Mali in November 2011.

Mauritania announced a six-week postponement of its October 12 elections on Thursday after a coalition of opposition parties said it would boycott in a bid to cause the vote to fail.

The west African nation's election commission said the first round of the parliamentary and local elections would now take place on November 23 while a second round would go ahead if required on December 7.

An Al-Qaida-linked militia founded by wanted Islamist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar announced on Thursday it had joined forces with another armed group to take revenge against France for its military offensive in Mali.

Belmokhtar's Mauritania-based Al-Mulathameen Brigade (The Brigade of the Masked Ones) and the Mali-based Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) said they had joined forces under a single banner to unite Muslims across the region.

Mauritania said Wednesday it would send soldiers to the United Nations peacekeeping force charged with ensuring security after elections in conflict-scarred Mali -- but only to areas near their shared border.

The MINUSMA force has replaced an African military mission which had been supporting French soldiers who entered Mali in January to halt an Islamist advance and to help the government re-establish its authority over the vast country.