NOUAKCHOTT, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Violent protests against food price increases in Mauritania spread on Friday to the capital Nouakchott, where police fired tear gas to disperse about 1,000 stone-throwing demonstrators, witnesses said.

The unrest in the Muslim West African state's dusty seaside capital, which followed afternoon prayers, erupted after similar protests in southeastern towns this week in which at least one protester was killed and several were injured.

Police fired tear gas in skirmishes with Friday's protesters, who set car tyres ablaze on streets and smashed the windows of police vehicles.

The protests were triggered by sharp rises in the prices of grains and other basic foodstuffs.

They were the first popular challenge to the policies of President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi's government.

He took over from a military junta in April after winning elections in the former French colony, which straddles Arab and black Africa on the western edge of the Sahara.

The government had set up a crisis committee to look into the reasons behind this week's protests.

In the southeastern town of Aioun el Atrouss on Friday, police also clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators who tried to storm a government food store.

Record prices for grains and other crops is making life difficult for millions in West Africa, one of the poorest parts of the world, and is raising fears of severe food shortages.

Unprecedented oil prices have increased transport costs, while the explosion in biofuels, subsidised by some Western countries for being less environmentally damaging than fossil fuels, has also contributed to the rise.

In neighbouring Senegal, President Abdoulaye Wade last week pledged to cut the number of ministers in his cabinet and reduce government salaries, including his own, in a show of solidarity with citizens struggling with high energy and food prices. (Reporting by Ibrahima Sylla; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Caroline Drees)

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