TUNIS: A Tunisian allegedly caught red-handed taking a bribe was among three regional officials sacked on Monday by Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, who has vowed to fight graft.
A government statement announced the sackings but did not say why the three were relieved of their duties.
A spokesman for a provincial prosecutor said one of the officials had been arrested during a police sting allegedly pocketing money from a businessman who had complained to authorities that he had been asked to pay bribes.
According to spokesman Mohamed Ali Barhoumi, the businessman told authorities the official pestered him with demands for payment for the renewal of the lease for his shop.
The suspect allegedly pocketed 500 dinars ($200) from the shop owner in the police sting operation, Barhoumi said. Corruption was widespread under longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising, and has remained endemic since.
Chahed’s government has made fighting corruption a priority since taking office last year, when the head of the national anti-graft body Chawki Tabib warned graft had reached “epidemic” proportions.
Tunisia was ranked 75th out of more than 170 countries in the 2016 corruption perceptions index published by Transparency International. It had been 59th in 2010.
In January, the anti-graft body honored 10 whistleblowers in corruption cases in a move to encourage more people to come forward.
Meanwhile, a young man trying to enter the Tunisian Parliament was arrested on Tuesday when a scanner at the entrance detected that he had a knife, officials said. A parliamentary official told Reuters it was not immediately clear why the man was attempting to enter the building.
A member of Parliament told local media he was among a group of students who had come to watch a parliamentary session.
Security at the Parliament building in Tunis has been tightened since gunmen stormed the neighboring Bardo Museum two years ago and killed 21 foreign tourists.
Taking bribe, Tunisian official ‘caught red-handed’
Taking bribe, Tunisian official ‘caught red-handed’
Syria’s Kurdish fighters agree to leave Aleppo after deadly clashes
- Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that “buses carrying the last batch of members of the SDF organization have left the Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood in Aleppo, heading toward northeastern Syria”
ALEPPO: Syria’s Kurdish fighters said Sunday that they agreed under a ceasefire to withdraw from Aleppo after days of fighting government forces in the city.
Hours earlier, Syria’s military said it had finished operations in the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood with state television reporting that Kurdish fighters who surrendered were being bused to the north.
The military had already announced its seizure of Aleppo’s other Kurdish-held neighborhood, Ashrafiyeh.
Kurdish forces had controlled pockets of Syria’s second city Aleppo and operate a de facto autonomous administration across swathes of the north and northeast, much of it captured during the 14-year civil war.
The latest clashes erupted after negotiations to integrate the Kurds into the country’s new government stalled.
“We reached an understanding that led to a ceasefire and secured the evacuation of the martyrs, the wounded, the trapped civilians and the fighters from Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsud neighborhoods to northern and eastern Syria,” the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) wrote in a statement.
Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that “buses carrying the last batch of members of the SDF organization have left the Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood in Aleppo, heading toward northeastern Syria.”
The SDF initially denied its fighters were leaving, describing the bus transfers as forced displacement of civilians.
An AFP correspondent saw at least five buses on Saturday carrying men out of Sheikh Maqsud, but could not independently verify their identities.
According to the SDF statement, the ceasefire was reached “through the mediation of international parties to stop the attacks and violations against our people in Aleppo.”
The United States and European Union both called for the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities to return to political dialogue.
The fighting, some of the most intense since the ousting of long-time ruler Bashar Assad in December 2024, has killed at least 21 civilians, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people fled their homes.
Both sides blamed the other for starting the clashes on Tuesday.
Children ‘still inside’
On the outskirts of Sheikh Maqsud, families who had been trapped by the fighting were leaving, accompanied by Syrian security forces.
An AFP correspondent saw men carrying children on their backs board buses headed to shelters.
Dozens of young men in civilian clothing were separated from the crowd, with security forces making them sit on the ground before transporting them to an unknown destination, according to the correspondent.
A Syrian security official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the young men were “fighters” being “transferred to Syrian detention centers.”
At the entrance to the district, 60-year-old Imad Al-Ahmad was heading in the opposite direction, trying to seek permission to return home.
“I left four days ago...I took refuge at my sister’s house,” he told AFP. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to return today.”
Nahed Mohammad Qassab, a 40-year-old widow also waiting to return, said she left before the fighting to attend a funeral.
“My three children are still inside, at my neighbor’s house. I want to get them out,” she said.
A flight suspension at Aleppo airport was extended until further notice.
‘Return to dialogue’
US envoy Tom Barrack met Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Saturday, and afterwards called for a “return to dialogue” with the Kurds in accordance with the integration framework agreed in March.
The deal was meant to be implemented last year, but differences, including Kurdish demands for decentralized rule, stymied progress as Damascus repeatedly rejected the idea.
The fighting in Aleppo raised fears of a regional escalation, with neighboring Turkiye, a close ally of Syria’s new Islamist authorities, saying it was ready to intervene. Israel has sided with the Kurdish forces.
The clashes have also tested the Syrian authorities’ ability to reunify the country after the brutal civil war and commitment to protecting minorities, after sectarian bloodshed rocked the country’s Alawite and Druze communities last year.
