Despite security gains, IS still seeking foothold in Tunisia
The discovery of warehouses filled with heavy weapons in Tunisia's border area reveal that the Islamic State and its affiliates are still active despite the security crackdown on them.
Four warehouses containing large quantities of weapons were discovered over the past days in the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdane on the border with Libya. On Nov. 12, the Tunisian Ministry of Interior announced that there is a weapons warehouse in one of the olive forests in the city. On the same day, the ministry unveiled a second underground store containing war material, including rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
On Nov. 13, the ministry said it discovered a third warehouse in the city containing a large quantity of arms and ammunition, including SAM7 missiles. On Nov. 14, security forces uncovered a fourth store in the Amiriyah neighborhood in the city of Ben Guerdane. While such discoveries show that jihadi groups in Tunisia still enjoy a margin of movement and are planning to establish an emirate, they also mark a great security success for Tunisian authorities.
In this context, the question arises as to how the security services managed to detect these stores in one fell swoop and in such a short time. It all started Nov. 6 when a Tunisian soldier named Saad Ghazlani was killed by an armed group in the city of Kasserine, located in the west of the country. On the same day, the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack. Following the operation, Tunisian troops launched a sweeping operation in the western mountains on the border with Algeria. Tunisia announced Nov. 9 the killing of Talal Saidi — the leader of the group involved in the killing of Ghazlani — in the Jabal Saloum region in Kasserine. Saidi was the emir of Jund al-Khilafah, which is loyal to IS.
According to press statements by the official spokesman for the Tunisian Ministry of Defense, Col. Belhassen Oueslati, the weapons stores were discovered in the city of Ben Guerdane as “a result of information found on the phone of Saidi.”
