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| Africa North |
| Tunisia Says al-Qaeda Group almost Wiped out after Attacks |
| 2015-07-15 |
| [ALMANAR.LB] Tunisia's interior minister said security forces had almost wiped out an gang linked to al Qaeda terrorist organization during a crackdown launched after two deadly attacks on tourists. Clashes last week killed leaders, including two veteran Algerian fighters, from the Okba Ibn Nafaa brigade, blamed for an assault on the Bardo Museum in Tunis in March, minister Najem Gharselli told news hounds late on Sunday. The North African country has come under growing international pressure to show it is in control of Lions of Islam after a gunman killed 38 holidaymakers at a beach hotel in Sousse last month, an attack claimed by the so-called 'Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... group. "After we killed some of their leaders in (the central region of) Gafsa a few days ago, we have now destroyed 90 percent of Okba Ibn Nafaa," the minister said. Okba Ibn Nafaa, allied with Al Qaeda's north African wing, was among the most active of hard-line groups that emerged after Tunisia's 2011 "Arab Spring" uprising ousted President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. Authorities say more than 3,000 Tunisians have left the country to fight for ISIL and other gangs on other battlefields. But the minister said the organization still had no significant presence in Tunisia. "There are no ISIL groups with any structure in Tunisia, but that doesn't mean there are not some members who have allegiances with ISIL," he said. ISIL have claimed both the Bardo and the Sousse beach resort attacks, though the government blames Okba and remnants of another local group, Ansar al Sharia, operating across the border in Libya. The minister said 15 people had so far been tossed in the clink Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! in connection with the Sousse attack, and security forces had broken up other sleeper cells planning other assaults. "We have taken the security measures to better protect tourists and Tunisians, including the deployment of 100,000 police across the country," he said. Britannia, which lost 30 nationals in the Sousse attack, told its tourists to leave the country last week, saying another attack was highly likely and more work was needed to protect tourists. |
| Posted by:Fred |