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Democracy doesn’t come easy especially when forming a new democracy with a reformed constitution. You get only one chance to get it right or suffer the consequences later … see the US citizens and SCOTUS.
Tunisian army launches air strikes on Islamist militants
TUNIS (JPost) Aug. 12, 2013 – Tunisian armed forces launched air strikes against Islamist militants in the Mount Chaambi area near the Algerian border, an army source said. The source also said several militants had been killed and four were arrested in the same region on Sunday. He gave no death toll.
Aircraft bombed caves in and around Mount Chaambi, where the military has been trying to track down Islamist militants since December, witnesses and the army source said.
The operations were launched in the same area where militants ambushed and killed eight soldiers last month in one of the deadliest attacks on Tunisian security forces in decades.
« click for map Mt Chaambi
Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki speaks to soldiers during a
visit to the Mount Chaambi region in May 2013 (Gulf Times)Tunisia’s Islamist-led government is also grappling with a mounting protest movement organized by the secular opposition that is demanding its resignation. The opposition, angered by the assassination of two of its leaders, and emboldened by the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president by the military, is trying to topple Tunisia’s government led by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda.
Tunisia links two wanted jihadist groups to Qaeda
(AFP) May 7, 2013 – Tunisian authorities yesterday recognised that two jihadist groups which the army has been hunting on the Algerian border have links to Al Qaeda, stressing their determination to take them out.
“There are two groups, one in the Kef region with around 15 people and the other in Mount Chaambi with around 20 people,” interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told reporters, referring to the groups being pursued by the army since last week.
“There is a connection between the two groups, and the one in the Chaambi region has ties with the Okba Ibn Nafaa brigade, which is linked to Al Qaeda. We will respond militarily to anyone who takes up arms against the state.”
Since the revolution in January 2011 that ousted Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has seen a sharp rise in the activity of radical Islamist groups that were suppressed under the former dictator.
Those groups have been blamed for a wave of violence, notably an attack on the US embassy last September and the assassination of a leftist opposition leader in February, cases which the ruling Islamist party Ennahda has sought to portray as isolated incidents.
In Tunisia’s Mount Chaambi attack, pictures fallen soldiers add to tragedy
