Tunisian security sources have announced a series of new arrests targeting individuals involved in severe security crimes, including affiliations with terrorist organizations and extremist groups, as well as networks dealing in human, goods, and money trafficking.
These operations have significantly focused on disrupting routes used by smugglers to transport migrants from Sub-Saharan African countries through Tunisia to the southern coasts of Europe.
Official reports released by the Ministry of Interior, the National Guard, and the National Security Administration detailed operations that led to the arrests of suspects previously under surveillance in border provinces adjacent to Algeria, including the Kasserine province.
This area, known for its dense mountain forests, has been a hotspot for numerous terrorist operations and clashes between security forces and armed terrorists over the past decade.
In this context, the sources also highlighted the arrest of a key terrorism suspect in the Kasserine region who had been sought after for investigation.
A senior security official told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that some of the new detainees charged with terrorism in the Tunisian-Algerian and Libyan border provinces were members of “very small groups,” remnants of armed organizations that the national security and army forces had successfully dismantled between 2012 and 2015.
These groups operate differently from the “hierarchical” organizations that allow for rapid exposure and elimination of all members once a few leaders or fighters are apprehended.
Due to the intense crackdown by security forces on individuals suspected of connections to extremist ideologies, terrorist groups, smuggling networks, and drug trafficking, some members of these old terrorist groups have frequently escaped to the mountains and rural areas of the western and southern border provinces, including Kasserine, where security forces and the army have recently arrested several smugglers and fugitives.
