Tunisia to deploy army, arrests 9 as Islamic State says it was behind attack
Islamic State claims attack in Tunisia, raising fears it is expanding its reach
(35 minutes later)
TUNIS —Tunisian authorities arrested nine people Thursday in connection with a terrorist attack that killed or wounded dozens of foreign tourists at a renowned museum, an assault for which the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility.
TUNIS — The Islamic State said Thursday that two of its fighters had carried out an attack on a museum here that killed 20 foreign tourists, a rampage that raised fears of the jihadist group’s growing international footprint.
After Tunisia’s president vowed to expand a “merciless war against terrorism,” the Islamic State asserted Thursday that two of its fighters, both Tunisians, struck a “malicious group from the citizens of the Crusader countries,” according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group. There was no immediate confirmation that the militant organization, an al-Qaeda offshoot also known as ISIS and ISIL, was actually behind the assault.
In an audio recording distributed online, the Islamic State said the two gunmen, both said to be Tunisians, struck “citizens of the Crusader countries” in the attack on Wednesday, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.
The office of President Beji Caid Essebsi said the army would be deployed to major cities in the wake of Wednesday’s daylight attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis, which threatened the stability of the lone country seen as a success story following the “Arab Spring” uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa four years ago.
The statement marked the first time the Islamic State has claimed an operation in the tiny North African nation, although the group boasts thousands of Tunisian fighters among its ranks in Iraq and Syria. It was not possible to independently confirm the claim by the Islamic State.
The presidential office said five of those arrested were “directly connected” to the attack, while the four others were linked to the attackers but were based outside the capital. The statement referred to the detainees as members of a “cell” but did not mention whether they were part of a larger organization. It did not provide details of the identities of those arrested or their alleged roles in the assault.
The two militants — who were killed in a standoff at the museum Wednesday — appear to have been radicalized in their hometowns near the Algerian border and apparently traveled to Libya for training, according to local media reports and an interview with a friend of one of the militants’ families. Their brazen assault has highlighted the danger that the violent jihadist movement poses to this nation, which gave birth to the Arab Spring and is struggling to maintain its democracy.
[The Islamic State says it’s behind the terror attack in Tunis]
“I want the Tunisian people to understand that we are in a merciless war against terrorism and that these savage minorities do not frighten us,” Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi said on Thursday.
But a friend of the family of one of the alleged assailants, a teenager who had reportedly traveled to a jihadist stronghold in neighboring Syria for training and was killed in the attack, told The Washington Post on Thursday that police detained three of the young man’s relatives in a town in central Tunisia.
[Read: Why Tunisia, the Arab Spring’s sole success story, suffers from Islamist violence]
Tunisia’s health minister said Thursday that 20 foreign tourists were killed in Wednesday’s attack. The casualties were reported to be from various countries, including Australia, Belgium, Britain, Colombia, France, Italy, Japan, Poland and Spain.
Tunisian authorities said nine people had been arrested in connection with the attack, which killed tourists from countries including Italy, Spain, Britain, Belgium, France, Colombia and Japan. In addition, at least one Tunisian security officer died. Officials neither provided details of the identities of the arrested suspects nor described their alleged roles.
In addition, at least one Tunisian security officer died in the assault, and two attackers were killed when police raided the museum to end the siege and rescue hostages. More than 40 people were reported wounded.
Authorities named Yassine Laabidi and Saber — also known as Hatem — Khachnaoui as the militants who stormed the Bardo museum. Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid had said earlier Thursday that their links to jihadist groups were unclear.
In an audio recording and transcript distributed on Twitter, the Islamic State warned that the museum attack was “the first drop of the rain,” according to SITE. It identified the attackers by pseudonyms and said they used “machine guns and hand grenades” to carry out the “blessed” operation leading to the “killing and wounding dozens of Crusaders and apostates.” It said the two gunmen were killed after they “ran out of ammunition.”
But a friend of Khachnaoui’s family said in an interview that police detained three of the young man’s relatives in a town in central Tunisia.
Prime Minister Habib Essid said one of the attackers had been under surveillance by Tunisian intelligence services.
The friend, Nidal Abdelli, said Khachnaoui, 19, disappeared about three months ago, and the Tunisian Interior Ministry later informed the family that he had traveled to Derna, in eastern Libya, apparently to receive training. A group loyal to the Islamic State is reported to control parts of Derna, although other jihadist groups are also active there, including the al-Qaeda-inspired Ansar al-Sharia.
The attack drew global condemnation. The arrests came after Tunisian authorities broadened a nationwide manhunt for additional attackers who possibly fled the museum after the shootings.
Abdelli, 29, said the Khachnaouis are a poor family from the town of Sbetla in Kasserine province, which borders Algeria. Police have arrested Saber Khachnaoui’s father, sister and a brother, Abdelli said. He also stated that when Saber disappeared, his father notified police in Kasserine and the Interior Ministry in Tunis. Nonetheless, the young man managed to reenter the country.
It was the deadliest terrorist attack in the North African nation in more than a decade and raised fears that militants linked to the Islamic State were expanding their operations after gaining footholds in neighboring Libya.
“He’s a kid,” Abdelli said of Saber. “He doesn’t know anything. But he’s a victim as much as he is a terrorist. He’s a pawn in a much bigger game.”
The bloodshed also dealt a possibly crippling blow to Tunisia’s tourism industry, a pillar of its economy. Two cruise ships — whose passengers were among the victims — left port early Thursday.
“And there was no system in place to prevent him from being radicalized or to get him out once he had been brainwashed,” he said.
The attackers, clad in military uniforms, stormed the Bardo National Museum, seizing and gunning down foreign tourists before security forces raided the building to end the siege. The museum is a major tourist draw and is near the heavily guarded national parliament in Tunis.
Authoritarian leaders for decades imposed secularism on this Mediterranean nation of about 11 million people, most of whom are Muslim. But mass demonstrations in 2011 by citizens angry about corruption and unemployment forced autocratic leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country. In the more democratic period that followed, extremist groups were able to recruit with greater freedom.
Kasserine was one of the provinces where protests were strong during the revolution, Abdelli said.
“It’s clear that the economic and social issues in places like Kasserine have not been addressed since 2011,” Abdelli said.
In an interview with RTL, a French radio network, Prime Minister Essid said Laabidi had been flagged to intelligence officials, although not for “anything special.” His remarks raised questions about why Tunisian counterterrorism officials had not been more effective.
[Read: Tunisia sends most foreign fighters to Islamic State in Syria]
[Read: Tunisia sends most foreign fighters to Islamic State in Syria]
“I want the Tunisian people to understand that we are in a merciless war against terrorism and that these savage minorities do not frighten us,” said President Essebsi, who visited some of the dozens being treated for wounds in a Tunis hospital.
At the museum on Thursday, police deployed riot vans, barbed wire and dogs as they guarded the entrance. Police officers said that three attackers had opened fire the day before on tourists who had just stepped off tour buses in front of the museum. The gunmen then chased the visitors inside the building, the officers said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. They said the gunmen were wearing expensive clothes, including Nike shoes.
“We will fight them without mercy to our last breath.”
“If you saw them, you would never know they were terrorists,” said one officer. Other accounts have described the gunmen as wearing military or police uniforms.
A special session of military and security officials was set to convene Thursday, said presidential spokesman Moez Sinaoui.
A tour guide, Ala Hamdi, 22, said he had hunkered down with tourists in the museum for more than an hour Wednesday while waiting for the gunfire to subside.
In an interview with France’s RTL radio, Prime Minister Essid said Tunisia is working with other countries to learn more about the attackers, identified as Yassine Laabidi and Saber Khachnaoui, who were killed by security forces.
When the shooting broke out, he was with a group of 19 French tourists, he said.
He said Laabidi had been flagged to intelligence officials, although not for “anything special.”
“I put them [the tourists] in the Dougga Room and closed the door,” Hamdi said, referring to a room on the second of the museum’s three floors. He said he told everyone to be quiet as the sound of gunfire ricocheted through the building.
“Our nation is in danger,” Essid declared in a televised address Wednesday evening.
Outside the room he saw an injured tourist whose shirt was stained with blood, Hamdi said.
According to a family friend of Khachnaoui, a 19-year-old who was also known as Hatem, he disappeared about three months ago, and the Tunisian Interior Ministry later informed the family that he had traveled to Derna, a jihadist stronghold in eastern Libya, apparently to receive training. The Islamic State is reported to control parts of Derna, although other jihadist groups are active there, including Ansar al-Sharia.
“He asked me to help him; he said his wife was really bleeding,” he said. He added that “most of the violence was in the Carthage Room,” referring to a larger hall nearby.
The friend, Nidal Abdelli, 29, said the Khachnaouis are a poor family from the town of Sbetla in Kasserine province, which borders Algeria. Police have arrested and are interrogating Saber Khachnaoui’s father, sister and a brother, Abdelli said.
He said that when Saber disappeared, his father notified police in Kasserine and the Interior Ministry in Tunis.
“He’s a kid,” Abdelli said of Saber. “He doesn’t know anything. But he’s a victim as much as he is a terrorist. He’s a pawn in a much bigger game. And there was no system in place to prevent him from being radicalized or to get him out once he had been brainwashed.”
Kasserine is one of the more restive Tunisian provinces, Abdelli said, and one where protests were strong during the revolution four years ago. “It’s clear that the economic and social issues in places like Kasserine have not been addressed since 2011” when the popular revolt took place, he said.
At the museum on Thursday, police deployed riot vans, barbed wire and dogs as they guarded the entrance, and plainclothes agents circulated through crowds of onlookers.
Police officers at the scene said three attackers opened fire on tourists who had just stepped off tour buses in a parking lot in front of the museum, then chased fleeing visitors inside the museum. The officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. They said the gunmen were wearing expensive clothes, including Nike shoes.
“If you saw them, you would never know they were terrorists,” one police officer said at the scene.
A tour guide, Ala Hamdi, 22, said he hunkered down with tourists for more than an hour waiting for the gunfire to subside after the attackers ran into the museum.
When the shooting broke out, he was with a group of 19 French tourists, he said. “I put them in the Dougga Room and closed the door,” Hamdi said, referring to a room on the second of the museum’s three floors, named after Roman ruins in Tunisia. “I also saw another French family of five and a Tunisian family of five pass by, and I brought them into the room, too.” He said he told everyone to be quiet. He could hear gunfire but no loud booms that would indicate grenades, he said.
“Outside the room there was a British man,” Hamdi said. “He was injured and his shirt was stained with blood. He asked me to help him; he said his wife was really bleeding.” He added that “most of the violence was in the Carthage Room,” a larger hall nearby.
When he heard the police enter the museum, he said, he went down to meet them and told them about the people in the Dougga Room, who were among the first to be rescued. He said the museum was packed with visitors, including schoolchildren on class trips in addition to foreign tour groups.
“I never thought anything like this would happen here,” Hamdi said.
“I never thought anything like this would happen here,” Hamdi said.
“There is no life for the youth in this country,” he said. “I feel like a zombie. This is why I was not afraid” when the terrorists attacked.
The attack appeared intended to strike a blow to tourism, a major source of Tunisia’s revenue. It was the worst militant violence here in a decade.
Youths demonstrating outside the museum Thursday held up placards that said in French: “I am Tunisian. I am Bardo. I am Charlie.” The latter was a reference to a terrorist attack in January that killed a dozen people at the Paris offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Several hundred people demonstrated Thursday outside the Bardo museum, known for its world-class collection of Roman mosaics, to denounce the terrorist act.
“Terrorism is a poison that kills everything that is good and unique in society,” said one of the placard-holding youths, Ehab Hamdi, 18. “We must fight this ideology with more culture and more education.”
“We must fight this ideology with more culture and more education,” said Ehab Hamdi, 18, a youth who was holding a placard at the demonstration. “I believe the Islamic State could be behind it,” he said of the attack. “But Islam is open — it is not the way they portray it.”
Another, 19-year-old Firas Chaouchi, said of the thousands of Tunisians who have flocked to join the Islamic State: “They are not part of us.”
Daniela Deane in Rome, Hend Hassassi in Tunis and William Branigin and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
Tunisia, a mostly Muslim nation of about 11 million people, was governed for decades by autocrats who imposed secularism. Its sun-drenched Mediterranean beaches drew thousands of bikini-clad tourists, and its governments promoted education and other rights for women. But the country has grappled with rising Islamist militancy since a popular uprising overthrew its dictator four years ago, setting the stage for the Arab Spring revolts across the region.
Thousands of Tunisians have flocked to join jihadist groups in Syria, including the Islamic State, making the country one of the major sources of foreign fighters in the conflict. Tunisian security forces have also increasingly fought gun battles with jihadists at home.
Despite this, the country has been hailed as a model of democratic transition as other governments that came to power after the Arab Spring collapsed, often in bloody confrontations. But the attack Wednesday — on a national landmark that showcases Tunisia’s rich heritage — could heighten tensions in a nation that has become deeply divided between pro- and anti-Islamist political factions.
Many Tunisians accuse the country’s political Islamists, who held power from 2011 to 2013, of having been slow to respond to the growing danger of terrorism. Islamist politicians have acknowledged that they did not realize the threat that would develop when radical Muslims, who had been repressed under authoritarian regimes, won the freedom to preach freely in mosques.
In Washington, White House press secretary Josh Earnest condemned the attack and said the U.S. government was willing to assist Tunisian authorities in the investigation.
“This attack today is meant to threaten authorities, to frighten tourists and to negatively affect the economy,” said Lotfi Azzouz, Tunisia country director for Amnesty International, a London-based rights group.
Tourism is critical to Tunisia’s economy, accounting for 15 percent of its gross domestic product in 2013, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, an industry body. The Bardo museum hosts one of the world’s most outstanding collections of Roman mosaics and is popular with tourists and Tunisians alike.
The attack is “also aimed at the country’s security and stability during the transition period,” Azzouz said. “And it could have political repercussions — like the curtailing of human rights, or even less government transparency if there’s fear of further attacks.”
The attack raised concerns that the government, led by secularists, would be pressured to stage a wider crackdown on Islamists of all stripes. Lawmakers are drafting an anti-terrorism bill to give security forces additional tools to fight militants.
“We must pay attention to what is written” in that law, Azzouz said. “There is worry the government will use the attack to justify some draconian measures.”
Tunisian Islamists and secular forces have worked together — often reluctantly — to defuse the country’s political crises in the years since the revolt.
Last fall, Tunisians elected a secular-minded president and parliament dominated by liberal forces after souring on Islamist-led rule.
In 2011, voters had elected a government led by the Ennahda party — a movement similar to Egypt’s Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. But a political stalemate developed as the party and others tried to draft the country’s new constitution. The Islamists failed to improve a slumping economy. And Ennahda was criticized for what many Tunisians saw as a failure to crack down on Islamist extremists.
After the collapse of the authoritarian system in 2011, hard-line Muslims known as Salafists attacked bars and art galleries. Then, in 2012, hundreds of Islamists assaulted the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, shattering windows and hurling gasoline bombs, after the release of a crude online video about the prophet Muhammad. The government outlawed the group behind the attack — Ansar al-Sharia, an al-Qaeda-linked organization — and began a crackdown. But the killing of two leftist politicians in 2013 prompted a fresh political crisis, and Ennahda stepped down, replaced by a technocratic government.
Security officials are particularly concerned by the collapse of Libya, where various armed groups are vying for influence and jihadist militants have entrenched themselves in major cities. Tunisians worry that extremists can easily get arms and training in the neighboring country.
In January, Libyan militants loyal to the Islamic State beheaded 21 Christians — 20 of them Egyptian Copts — along the country’s coast. They later seized the Libyan city of Sirte
Officials are worried about the number of Tunisian militants who may have joined the jihadists in Libya — with the goal of returning home to fight the Tunis government.
Branigin reported from Washington. Daniela Deane in Rome, Hend Hassassi in Tunis and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
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Why Tunisia, Arab Spring’s sole success story, suffers from Islamist violence
Why Tunisia, Arab Spring’s sole success story, suffers from Islamist violence
