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| Africa North |
| Two militants killed, two held in Tunisia |
| 2013-09-10 |
| Tunisian security forces on Monday killed two militants from the extremist group Ansar Al Sharia and arrested two others in a Tunis suburb, the interior ministry said. The two men arrested, Mohamed Khiari and Mohamed Aouadi, are leaders of the Salafist movement’s military wing and are implicated in the assassination of opposition lawmakers Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, a ministry source said. The killings and arrests came during a sweep in a northern suburb of Tunis by the anti-terrorist squad, the source told AFP. The slain militants died after a heavy exchange of fire, the ministry said in a statement, naming just one of the deceased, Adel Saidi. Prime Minister Ali Larayedh last month linked Ansar Al Sharia, the largest such movement in the North African country, with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and accused it of carrying out the worst “terrorist” attacks since the uprising. The group is also believed to be supporting jihadists holed up in the remote Mount Chaambi region, along the Algerian border, who have been hunted for months by the Tunisian army. But Ansar Al Sharia insists it has no ties with foreign groups, while expressing its “loyalty to the principles of jihad and to jihadist groups around the world”. |
| Posted by:Steve White |