Tag: tunisia
Apparent Suicide Attack On Tunisian Presidential Guard Bus Kills 12

Apparent Suicide Attack On Tunisian Presidential Guard Bus Kills 12

By Tarek Amara

TUNIS (Reuters) – A bomb exploded on a bus packed with Tunisian presidential guards in the capital Tunis on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people in an attack one source said was probably the work of a suicide bomber.

Ambulances rushed wounded from the scene and security forces closed off streets around Mohamed V Avenue, one of the main streets in Tunis, before the president declared a curfew in the city and imposed a state of emergency nationwide.

It was the third major attack in Tunisia this year, after an Islamist militant killed 38 foreigners at a beach hotel in the resort of Sousse in June, and gunmen killed 21 tourists at the Bardo Museum in Tunis in March. Islamic State claimed both those attacks.

“They want to make us live with horror but we are going to bring that horror to the terrorist camps,” President Beji Caid Essebsi said in a televised speech. “We are at war and we are going to win.”

Security sources said the guards were boarding the bus to be taken to the presidential palace on the outskirts of the city when it blew up. One presidential source said it was likely that a bomber had detonated his explosive belt inside the bus.

At least 12 guards were killed and 17 wounded, according to an Interior Ministry statement.

If confirmed it was a suicide bomber, it would be the first such attack in Tunisia since October 2013 when an attacker blew only himself up on a beach in the resort town of Sousse.

“I was on Mohamed V, just getting ready to get into my car, when there was a huge explosion. I saw the bus blow up. There were bodies and blood everywhere,” said bystander Bassem Trifi.

Essebsi canceled a trip to Europe and said Tunis would be placed under curfew until Wednesday 5 a.m. (0400 GMT). He reinstated a month-long state of emergency, temporarily giving the government more executive flexibility, security forces more powers, and restricting some civil rights.

Mohamed V is a major boulevard usually packed with traffic and pedestrians, and the site of several hotels and banks.

Fighting Islamist militants has become a major challenge for Tunisia, a small North African country that was hailed as a blueprint for democratic change in the region after an uprising in 2011 ousted autocrat Zine Abidine Ben Ali.

Tunisia has held free elections and is operating under a new constitution and a broad political consensus, for which secular and Islamist parties have managed to overcome deep disagreements.

But several thousand Tunisians have also left to fight in Syria, Iraq and Libya with Islamic State and other militant groups, and some have threatened to carry out attacks at home.

The army has also been fighting against another Islamist militant group in the mountains near the Algerian border. Militants have attacked checkpoints and patrols in rural areas in the past.

In September, the government received intelligence reports pointing to possible car bombings in the capital and banned traffic in parts of the city.

This month, authorities arrested 17 Islamist militants and said they had prevented another major assault, planned for November, on hotels and security forces in Sousse.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara and Mohamed Argoubi; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Kevin Liffey, John Stonestreet and Christian Plumb)

Police help to make way for an ambulance carrying bodies after an attack on a military bus in Tunis, Tunisia November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi

 

 

Dozens Killed In Terrorist Attacks On Three Continents

Dozens Killed In Terrorist Attacks On Three Continents

With gunfire and explosions, suspected Islamic terrorists attacked sites in France, Tunisia, and Kuwait on Friday, killing dozens and leaving questions about whether the assaults were coordinated.

In France, two men who reportedly attacked a U.S.-owned gas factory, and killed one person, “whose severed head was found pinned to the factory’s entrance,” and injured two others, have been arrested. One suspect is allegedly linked to the orthodox Muslim Salafist movement.

One suspect drove a vehicle through the factory gates, crashing into gas canisters and causing an explosion, according to The Associated Press. A white flag and a black flag, both with Arabic inscriptions, were found at the scene.

In Tunisia, at a beach resort crowded with tourists, two gunmen killed 28 people around noon local time. Tunisian security forces killed one suspect and the other reportedly fled the scene. Thirty-six people were wounded in the attack. Police are pursuing the second gunman.

And in Kuwait, 25 people were killed in a suicide bombing attack at a Shiite mosque packed with people during Friday prayers. Militants affiliated with the so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, which wounded 202 people, according to the BBC.

On Friday, U.S. intelligence officials were working to evaluate whether the killings in the three countries were connected, and if so, “whether the Islamic State had actively directed, coordinated or inspired them,” according to The New York Times.

“While the Kuwait bomb targeted members of the Shia sect, who are seen as heretics by the hardline Sunnis in ISIS and al Qaeda,” The Daily Beast reports, “the attacks in Tunisia and France were designed to terrify the West.”

Photo: Security forces stand guard outside the Imam Sadiq Mosque, a Shiite Muslim mosque, following a suicide bomb blast on June 26, 2015, in the capital of Kuwait. (Noufal Moodadi/Xinhua/Zuma Press/TNS)

19 Dead In Tunisia Museum Siege

19 Dead In Tunisia Museum Siege

By Tarak Guizani and Pol O Gradaigh, dpa (TNS)

TUNIS, Tunisia — An attack by gunmen at a museum in Tunis on Wednesday killed 19 people, including 17 foreign tourists.

Armed men dressed in military uniforms opened fire on tourists outside the Bardo museum in the Tunisian capital, Prime Minister Habib Essid said.

The gunmen then followed fleeing tourists inside the museum building, holding several of them hostage.

Security forces ended the siege, killing two of the attackers, while two or three escaped the scene and were being sought, Essid told a press conference.

The victims included German, Italian, Polish and Spanish tourists, Essid said. Another 22 tourists and two Tunisians were injured.

The Bardo museum, one of Tunis’ main tourist attractions, has a rich collection of archaeological finds. It includes remains from the famed city of Carthage, destroyed by the Romans in the second century BC.

The museum shares an entrance with the country’s parliament, which was in session at the time of the attack. Lawmakers were evacuated by security forces.

Television pictures showed people running for shelter behind police lines, while photographs distributed on social media showed tourists apparently sitting against walls inside the museum.

Italians injured in the attack were believed to have been touring the city after stopping over in the Tunisian capital during a cruise ship holiday.

Italian cruise ship operator Costa Crociere said one of its vessels docked in Tunis on Wednesday with 3,161 passengers. The company said all were asked to return immediately aboard following news of the attack.

Essid called for citizens to work with the security forces. “The war against terror is a long term war,” he warned.

President Beji Caid Essibsi, visiting the injured in the city’s Charles De Gaulle hospital, said the atrocity was “a disaster that has befallen Tunisia.”

“We must start a general mobilization and completely finish off the terrorists,” Essibsi said.

Speaking while the siege was continuing, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls strongly condemned the attack and hostage taking, and said the Foreign Ministry had placed its crisis center on full alert.

“This new attack cruelly illustrates, unfortunately, the threats we are confronted with in Europe, in the Mediterranean and the world,” Valls said during a visit to Brussels.

The attack is the deadliest to have taken place in the usually peaceful capital since the 2010-11 revolution against dictator Zine Abidine Ben Ali.

Tunisia has a significant jihadist presence, but most clashes between militants and security forces have taken place in the mountainous west of the country near the Algerian border.

An attack by militants near the border killed four National Guardsmen last month.

Despite its population of about 11 million, Tunisia was last year estimated to have provided the largest single contingent of foreign jihadists in the Syrian civil war.

Prime Minister Habib Essid, who took office last month, has said that dealing with terrorism is one of his government’s top priorities.

PhotO: An attack by gunmen at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia, killed 19 people — 17 tourists and two Tunisians — on Wednesday, March 18, 2015. (Chokri Mahjoub/Zuma Press/TNS)