TUNIS: Tunisian security forces have killed two Islamic militants in a remote western area of the country, near the border with Algeria — including a top aide of Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an official source told Reuters.
Tunisia has been on high alert since 2015, when Daesh gunmen killed dozens of foreign tourists in a museum in Tunis and on a beach in the resort city of Sousse.
Algerian Bilel Kobi was “the right arm of Abou Wadoud” and was killed in an ambush near the Algerian border when on a mission to reorganize AQIM’s Tunisian branch following strikes by Tunisian forces against it, the source told Reuters.
Separately, reports say Tunisians are still taking to streets since they ousted their longtime ruler in the first of the Arab Spring uprisings.
Why, after so long, has the country been unable to tackle its problems?
Unemployment, corruption and austerity measures in the 2018 budget have fueled widespread protests as the North African country marked the anniversary of the 2011 revolt that toppled longtime dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.
While Tunisia has been praised as a model of democratic transition, post-revolution governments have struggled to improve living standards and tackle pervasive graft.
“Work, bread and national dignity” — that was the slogan that rallied Tunisian protesters in 2011.
But a growth rate that reached a moderate two percent in 2017 following years of stagnation, has barely dented the unemployment figures, which remain stubbornly above 15 percent — rising to 30 percent among young graduates.
Political economist Med Dhia Hammami said investments since the revolution have been channelled to projects that yield profits rather than offer mass employment.
“Most direct foreign investments in Tunisia are in the extractive sector — gas or oil — which doesn’t create jobs,” he said.
“There is a focus on services, including tourism, which create very precarious and seasonal jobs, to the detriment of agriculture, for example.”
If things continue as they are, he added, “we will find ourselves, like under Ben Ali, with growth at five percent and unemployment at 15-18 percent.”
Adding to the pain of joblessness, prices grew by six percent in 2017 as the dinar slid against the dollar and new taxes kicked in.
Many analysts expect further inflation this year.
Tunisian forces kill top aide of Al-Qaeda leader in Maghreb
Tunisian forces kill top aide of Al-Qaeda leader in Maghreb
Syria Kurds chief says ‘all efforts’ being made to salvage deal with Damascus
- Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal
- The two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism
DAMASCUS: Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said Thursday that “all efforts” were being made to prevent the collapse of talks on an agreement with Damascus to integrate his forces into the central government.
The remarks came days after Aleppo saw deadly clashes between the two sides before their respective leaders ordered a ceasefire.
In March, Abdi signed a deal with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration into the government by year’s end, but differences have held up its implementation.
Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal, adding in a statement that the two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism, and pledging further meetings with Damascus.
Downplaying the year-end deadline, he said the deal “did not specify a time limit for its ending or for the return to military solutions.”
He added that “all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process” and that he considered failure unlikely.
Abdi also repeated the SDF’s demand for decentralization, which has been rejected by Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad last year.
Turkiye, an important ally of Syria’s new leaders, sees the presence of Kurdish forces on its border as a security threat.
In Damascus this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the importance of the Kurds’ integration, having warned the week before that patience with the SDF “is running out.”
The SDF control large swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, were integral to the territorial defeat of the Daesh group in Syria in 2019.
Syria last month joined the anti-IS coalition and has announced operations against the jihadist group in recent days.
