Tunisian forces track down jihadi groups near Algerian border

Source : Al Akhbar English

Tunisian security forces were on Thursday hunting two armed jihadi groups near the Algerian border, the interior ministry said.

"There are two groups, one of about 15 to 20 people in Mount Chaambi... Another group is in the Kef region near the Algerian border," ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui told AFP.

"There are no (direct) clashes taking place. We are combing the region with guns," he added.

A security source said on Wednesday that troops clashed with around 50 armed Tunisian and Algerian jihadis in the Chaambi region, which is completely surrounded by the army.

A defense ministry source was unable to give more details about those targeted in the operation, or about the second group in the Kef region, around 100 kilometers to the north.

"I have no idea about their number. The Chaambi region is huge. We are in the process of trying to track them down. For the moment no one has been arrested," Colonel Mokhtar Ben Naceur told AFP.

Tunisian forces have been hunting for the group holed up in the mountainous western region since Monday. The authorities have described them only as "terrorists."

In the operation to flush them out, around 15 soldiers and members of the national guard have already been wounded, some seriously, by homemade landmines laid by the gunmen in parts of the border region.

Asked about cooperation with Algeria, the colonel said that Tunisia's neighbor was assisting but only at the level of intelligence-sharing.

"When there is concrete information, it is shared. There is no joint action on the ground," he said.

The defense ministry said on Wednesday that no direct fighting had taken place and that troops were demining the mountain with the help of "small arms and mortars." But the area covers around 100 square kilometers, 60 of which are forested.

Since the mass uprising that toppled Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, Islamists suppressed by the former dictator have become increasingly assertive and been blamed for a wave of deadly attacks across the country.

Members of the armed forces involved in the search have told media that the Mount Chaambi group is well-armed and organized, with some saying veteran fighters who fought in northern Mali are among them.

The current government, led by the moderate Islamist party al-Nahda, has fully recognized the jihadi threat facing Tunisia, warning that groups linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were infiltrating its borders.

But it has been strongly criticized by the opposition, who accuse al- Nahda of failing to rein in Islamist militants, or facing up to the threat they pose too late, despite the security problems they have caused since the revolution.

The security forces are also growing increasingly frustrated, criticizing their lack of equipment, with up to 400 demonstrating outside the national assembly on Thursday to demand better resources.

"Citizens, wake up! Terrorism has invaded our country," they chanted.

The group being hunted in the Chaambi region was blamed for an attack on a border post in December that killed a member of the national guard, and interior ministry forces have been searching for the jihadis ever since.

The current stand-off is the worst of its kind since clashes in 2007 between the army and Islamists in Soliman, near Tunis, during Ben Ali's reign, in which a soldier, two policemen and 11 Islamists died.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)