Tunisia Arrests Cell ‘Plotting Attacks’ on U.S. Officers

The MidEast News Source ^ | July 6, 2009 | Rachelle Kliger

[Islander7]

Tunisian authorities have reportedly arrested nine soldiers for allegedly planning attacks on visiting American military officers.

The arrests were made under the Tunisian anti-terrorism law, lawyers said.

The detainees, two of whom are officers in the Tunisian Air Force, planned to assassinate American military officers who visit the country periodically for military training and joint exercises with the Tunisian army, the German Deutsche Press Agency (DPA) reported.

Dr. Jack Kalpakian, a political expert at Morocco’s Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, said he was not surprised to hear news of the terror sweep.

“Tunisia’s government has followed a very secularist policy and has not been very sympathetic towards any kind of political religious expression,” he told The Media Line.

“While in other countries in North Africa expressions of Islamism are tolerated to some extent, Tunisia represses these voices,” he said.

Lawyer Samir Bin ‘Amar told DPA that a court charged the nine detainees with incitement to carry out terror attacks, attempting to acquire weapons and explosives for a terror organization and using Tunisian soil to recruit people for a terror organization.

The two officers, both aged 32, are stationed at an air force and naval base in Benzart, 60 kilometers north of the capital, Tunis. They were charged with trying to embezzle weapons and explosives from the base to use in an attack against the American officers.

[Islander7]

The U.S. views Tunisia as a partner in its fight against terrorism.

Terror attacks in North Africa have been a common occurrence over the past few years with the emergence of Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb, a reincarnation of a terror group that is affiliated, at least in its ideology, to the international Al-Qa’ida network.

However, few such attacks, if at all, took place in Tunisia.

[Cindy]

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