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Intel: How latest beheading could signal jihadi comeback in Tunisia

A sign is seen at the edge of Remada, Tunisia April 11, 2016. Tunisia's 2011 uprising created fertile ground for jihadist recruiters. Hundreds of Islamist militants were freed from prison as part of an amnesty for those detained under Ben Ali. Ultra-conservative salafists began to flex their muscle, seizing control of mosques and clashing with secularists. As Tunisia's politics have stabilised, the government has reasserted control, taking back mosques, banning the local al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al Sharia,

The anti-terrorism arm of Tunisia’s National Guard has launched a formal investigation into the murder of a man who disappeared two days ago in the central province of Sidi Bouzid after his head was found in a military no-go zone on Mount Mghilla.

Why it matters: The murder of construction worker Mohamed Lakhdar ben Salem Mahkloufi, 55, recalls the 2015 beheading of Mabrouk Soltani, a 16-year-old shepherd, on the same mountain. Soltani’s murder was claimed by Jund al-Khilafah, the Tunisian branch of the Islamic State, which advertised the beheading in a video and went on to murder the shepherd’s brother. In January a Tunisian court convicted 49 people in Soltani’s murder, including 45 in absentia. But nobody has yet claimed killing Mahkloufi.

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