Tunisia: Six members of security forces killed in attack

Tunis – Six members of the security forces were killed Sunday in northwestern Tunisia in a "terrorist" operation according to the authorities, the most deadly attack in over two years.
  

This attack comes as Tunisia, shaken by a political crisis, hopes to make this year a very good tourist season thanks to the improvement of security that has allowed the return of the tour operators.

Six agents of the National Guard were killed in the explosion of a mine near the border with Algeria, in the sector of Ain Sultan, in the province of Jendouba, said the Ministry of the Interior , which states that the attack took place at 11:45 (10:45 GMT).

A spokesman for the ministry, General Sofiene al-Zaq, who initially reported eight deaths, described the attack as " terrorist ".

He added that " attackers opened fire on the security forces " after the mine explosion.

" Search operations of terrorists " are under way, with the help of the army, according to him.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack in one of the mountainous border areas where the two main extremist groups, the Okba ibn Nafaa phalanx, a branch of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), are located. and Jund al Khalifa, affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) group.

Interim Minister of the Interior, Ghazi Jeribi, is expected in Jendouba, according to a government source.

This attack is likely to accentuate the deep political crisis currently going on in Tunisia, where Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, who fired the former interior minister, is facing an offensive from his own side .

There are regular clashes on the Algerian border, but this is the first time in two years that the police have suffered such losses.

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The last major attack in the country was in March 2016, when jihadists launched coordinated operations against Ben Guerdane security facilities, near the border with Libya, killing 13 law enforcement personnel and seven civilians.

Last April, a soldier was shot dead in clashes with armed Islamists in the mountainous region of Kbaderine (west-central).

In March, a man had unleashed his explosive charge while he was being pursued by police in the Ben Guerdane region.

After its revolution in 2011, Tunisia was confronted with a rise in the jihadist movement, responsible for the deaths of dozens of soldiers and police, but also civilians and foreign tourists.

Although the security situation has improved significantly, the country remains under a state of emergency since the suicide bombing in Tunis against the presidential security (12 agents killed), in November 2015.

The forces Security and observers believe that the major armed groups are currently very weak and unstructured. But isolated incidents persist, especially in the maquis of the north-west.

Since the fall of the Ben Ali regime in 2011, at least " 118 soldiers, members of the National Guard and police officers, were killed in the north-west, and more than 200 wounded ", notes researcher Matt Herbert, who compiled the reviews published in the media. The majority of members of the security forces killed since the revolution have been in this region, he said in a report published in late June.

" This new attack shows that there are still pockets where the security problems have not been solved ," he told AFP Sunday, while stressing that " the vast majority of Tunisia remains safe ".

According to this member of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, in order to truly overcome jihadist groups, it would be necessary, in addition to the military effort, " a comprehensive strategy directed towards the population (…) aimed at solving the economic and governance problems that these groups exploit ".