TUNIS: Two suspected militants were killed on Wednesday during a security operation near the Tunisian capital against a cell planning “simultaneous” attacks, the Interior Ministry said.
Sixteen others were arrested during the operation in Ariana province just outside Tunis, and Kalashnikov assault rifles, pistols and ammunition were seized, it said.
The ministry said the suspects had gathered in the area from different parts of the country “to prepare simultaneous terrorist operations.”
A resident of the Sanhaji district told AFP that a two-hour gunbattle erupted with the suspects after the national guard launched the raid at around 8 a.m. (0700 GMT).
“They were not from the neighborhood. We didn’t know them. They rented the house recently,” she said.
Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, has suffered from a wave of militant violence since its 2011 revolution that ousted former ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Daesh claimed brazen attacks last year on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis and a beach resort near Sousse that killed a total of 60 people, all but one of them foreign tourists.
A November suicide bombing in the capital, also claimed by Daesh, killed 12 presidential guards and prompted the authorities to declare a state of emergency.
Thousands of Tunisians have joined militant groups in conflict zones such as Iraq, Syria and Libya over the past few years.
2 suspected militants shot dead near Tunis
2 suspected militants shot dead near Tunis
Syria opens aid corridor to Kurdish-majority town
- The Syrian Democratic Forces find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobani in the north
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said on Sunday it had opened a humanitarian corridor to the Kurdish-majority town of Kobani, filled with displaced people, as a UN convoy carrying lifesaving aid headed there.
The aid came as the Defense Ministry announced a 15-day extension of the ceasefire across all fronts of Syrian Arab Army operations, effective at 11 p.m. on Jan. 24.
The ministry said the ceasefire extension comes in support of the US operation to transfer Daesh detainees from prisons in Syria to Iraq.
The Operations Command of the Syrian Arab Army warned the Syrian Democratic Forces and PKK militias against continuing their violations and provocations.
It also announced the opening of two humanitarian corridors, one to Kobani and another in nearby Hasakah province, to allow “the entry of aid.”
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the UN’s refugee agency in Syria, said on X that “thanks to the cooperation with the Syrian government ... a convoy of 24 trucks carrying essential food, relief items, and diesel” departed for Kobani “to deliver life-saving and winter assistance to civilians affected by the hostilities.”
The Syrian Democratic Forces find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobani in the north.
Kobani, which Kurdish forces liberated from a lengthy siege by Daesh in 2015, became a symbol of their first major victory against the terrorists.
The Syrian Petroleum Company said it had begun transporting crude oil from the Jbessa oil field in eastern Hasakah province to the Baniyas refinery on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The move follows the arrival of the first shipment of crude oil from Deir Ezzor fields to storage facilities in Baniyas, where it will be processed.
