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Tunisians join Mourabitounes terrorist group
[MAGHAREBIA] Some 300 Tunisian forces of Evil joined the new "Mourabitounes" terrorist group, Mosaique FM reported on Wednesday (September 18th), citing security sources.

Most of the Tunisians came from northern Mali, while others had been in Libya since the toppling of the Moamer Qadaffy regime.

According to the radio station, a majority of Mourabitounes bully boyz are now based in training camps in southern Libya.

The group was formed in August, when the al-Qaeda offshoot led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar joined forces with the Movement for Tawhid and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).

"The al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) threat is real, and whoever doubts that can look at the Jebel Chaambi massacre in which 8 of our best soldiers were killed last Ramadan," Col. Mohammed Ahmed, general co-ordinator of the Veteran Military Officers Association, told Magharebia.

"That organization is well trained, and more importantly, it is capable of collecting information, and this is only done by groups that have extensive experience in the field of terrorism," he added. "They are a mix of returnees from various battlefronts in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Mali."

Last July, the interior ministry received more than 20 "warnings of liquidation plots and bombings targeting Tunisia's Prime Minister Ali Larayedh, former prime minister and leader of Nidaa Tounes Béji Caid Essebsi, Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) Secretary-General Houcine Abbasi, and other politicians", Echorouk reported Thursday.

These terrorist plots never succeeded, thanks to tight protection provided for targeted figures and efforts made by the counter-terrorism agency unit," the paper added.

Security agencies in Maghreb, Sahel and southern Europe countries warned late last month that the new Mourabitounes terror group was likely contemplating terrorist operations "bigger" than the deadly siege at Algeria's Tiguentourine gas complex last winter, El Khabar reported.

Efforts were under way to convince AQIM, Ansar al-Din, as well as terrorist brigades active in Tunisia, to join the new organization, the paper added.

Ansar al-Sharia
...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Tunisia and Yemen, with the Tunisian version currently most active...
declared Tunisia "a land of jihad", National Union of Tunisian Security Forces Syndicates (UNSFST) member Sahbi Jouini said on September 9th.

"The terrorist threat in Tunisia is real, and serious co-ordination is now needed between the various agencies in Tunisia," UNSFST spokesperson Imed Belhadj Khlifa told Magharebia.

"The matter shouldn't be restricted to the interior ministry alone; rather, it should include the judiciary, the ministry of religious affairs and the finance ministry," he added.

The Union of Tunisian Magistrates (UMT) and the UNSFST issued a joint statement on Wednesday saying that they would "unify their efforts to protect the country, put its supreme interests above anything else and confront all forms of terrorism".

Posted by: Fred 2013-09-21
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=376217