Soldier seriously injured in attack against a military patrol in Tunisia

A terrorist attack on a military detachment in Tunisia has left a soldier seriously injured just a few hours ago. The security forces unit was patrolling in the Kasserine region in the north-west of Tunisian territory. 

According to military sources consulted by the newspaper Al-Ain, a landmine was used to perpetrate the attack, in a western mountainous area in the north, leaving the Tunisian soldier seriously injured, who had to be taken to the local hospital in the governorate of Kasserine.

"This attack is a terrorist attack. They wanted to attack the military forces that are carrying out a surveillance operation in the area to track down armed jihadist groups such as the Soldiers of the Caliphate or Uqba ibn Nafi," the same sources explained. 

The Anti-Terrorist Department of the Tunisian National Guard monitors the routes used by terrorist elements to meet and deliver various supplies. 
 

The western mountainous area of Tunisia (Al-Shaanbi, Salloum and Samama), according to many observers, has been hosting terrorist factions since 2012, such as the aforementioned Soldiers of the Caliphate and Uqba ibn Nafi.

Soldiers of the Caliphate is one of the several marks of Daesh, who swore loyalty to the jihadi terrorist group after breaking away from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). 

Meanwhile, Uqba ibn Nafi emerged as a common project of AQIM and the Tunisian command Ansar al-Sharia in 2012 with the aim of carrying out attacks in the Arab country. It was named after an Arab general who served the Umayyad dynasty in the 7th century by conquering territories in North Africa. Elements of this jihadist organization also swore allegiance to Daesh and it was this alliance that led to the famous attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis in 2015.

This offensive can be added to other relevant events in the North African country, such as the attack against the surroundings of the United States Embassy in the capital in March, carried out by two terrorists who killed a member of the security forces and wounded four other people; and the aforementioned attack on the Bardo, which left 19 foreign tourists dead, three Tunisians and the two terrorists who carried out the operation, following a previous attack on the Tunisian Parliament. 
 

The Tunisian Ministry of the Interior has said that a "terrorist" plot to send a person infected with the coronavirus to a police station in the city of Kebili to spread the COVID-19 disease has been dismantled.

The spokesman of the Tunisian National Guard (part of the Ministry of the Interior headed by Minister Hichem Mechichi) Houssem Eddine Jebabil said that in the plan a suspected terrorist urged a citizen with symptoms of coronavirus to move to spread the virus in the south, as highlighted by the Middle East Eye. He was incited to spread the coronavirus among police personnel by spitting, sneezing and coughing in their surroundings while performing their duties. These two elements were stopped because of this plot that sought to spread the coronavirus. 

Jebabil stressed that this new terrorist method arises as a response to the harsh blows inflicted on the Jihadist ranks, including the dismantling of many sleeper cells. 

This police operation has been an important step in stopping the advance of COVID-19 in Tunisia, a country that has already seen 37 deaths and more than 860 cases diagnosed by the incidence of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The Tunisian Ministry of the Interior added that a terrorist was successfully arrested last week as part of a plan to provide explosive materials to attack security forces during Ramadan.