By Lamine Ghanmi
Tunisian government forces stepped up search for jihadists near the Libyan border after a deadly raid the country’s president described as an unprecedented assault by the Islamic State group.
Clashes between government troops and Jihadists continued 24 hours after the 11-hour-fierce fight on Monday when dozens assailants attempted to storm main security facilities in Ben Guerdane including the main army barracks and the local headquarters of police and paramilitary national guard to establish an « Islamic emirate ».
The raid was timed with the expected arrivals of 20 British military experts to train Tunisian militarymen in the border control to ward off Jihadist infiltrations and German and American experts to reinforce a water-and-sand wall built by Tunisia on the frontier with Libya.
Tunisia has erected the 200-kilometre (125-mile) barrier that stretches about half the length of its border with Libya in an attempt to stop militant incursions.
Analysts said the attacks show that jihadists are keen to expand their clout from Libya to Tunisia and to set up a new stronghold in the country.
Prime Minister Habib Essid said about 50 extremists were believed to have taken part in the coordinated dawn attacks on an army barracks and police and National Guard posts in the border town of Ben Guerdane.
He said that 36 attackers had been killed and seven captured in a fierce firefight that also saw the deaths of seven civilians and 12 security force personnel.
At least six Jihadists were killed on Tuesday on scatered clashes at the outskirts of the town.
The Jihadists tried to rally the local population to their raid to take over the town telling the local population they came to « liberate them » from the government control and establish an « emirate ».
Essid told a news conference that the militants « murdered one internal security force member in his own home ».
He said three civilians and 14 security personnel were also wounded.
« The (security forces’) reaction was rapid and strong. We won a battle and are prepared for any others, » Essid said.
« Now they know Tunisia is no easy pushover and that it is not so simple to set up an emirate in Ben Guerdane. »
On Monday, Essid said that the operation’s aim had been to create a « Daesh (IS) emirate » in the town.
Faysal Cherif, a military specialist from the Tunis-based International Center of Strategic military and security Studis, said : »The attack reflected they were desperate after being coming under pressures in Libya ».
« It is a failed attempt as the reaction of the security forces was strong and rapid, » he said.
Sami Braham, a reseasercher at the government-run Ceres’s terrorism studies unit, said the attackers followed Daesh strategy and military tactics.
« That strategy emphasises surprise and thinking out of the box. They picked the most significant assets of the Tunisian state in Ben Guerdane which are the army barracks and the police and national guard positions »
« If you control the army barracks you control the gate between Libya and Tunisia, » he said.
Michael Ayari, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, agreed, saying the attacks were an « extension of the armed conflict so far confined to Libya ».
Some IS jihadists « consider that Ben Guerdane could become a strategic ‘liberated’ zone that would include southeastern Tunisia and the Tripoli region, » he said.
Essid also called for vigilance and promised a full investigation.
« There are lessons to be learned from this terrorist attack. There will be a thorough assessment of what happened, and we will draw all the conclusions, » Essid said. »It may be that there was a failure at a certain level, that of intelligence, other elements. »
Carnegie centre researcher Hamza Meddeb said the attacks could have been to avenge the killing of dozens of people last month in a US air strike on an IS training camp near the Libyan city of Sabratha. The city lies just 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Tunisia’s border and several Tunisian militants were said to have been killed in the US raid.
« Some wounded jihadists had said (after the raid) that IS would seek revenge by carrying out attacks in Tunisia, » said Meddeb.
Security experts see « failure » from the country’s intelligence first for not anticipating such a raid in Ben Guerdane and their blindness to prevent the inflitration of the Jihadits in the area amid heigthened security alert.
Abu Musaab Zarkaoui, the pioneer of Daesh strategy and military tactics, had said in 2004 if the Iraqi city of Falluga were Ben Guerdane Iraq would have been liberated from its occupiers, in reference to the skills and dedication to the fight of militants natives from the Tunisian town.
Ben Guerdane, with a population of 79,000 , provides more than 15 percent of Tunisian militants who joined Islamist war zones in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya compared to 10 percent from Tunis, with a population of about two million, according to Western intelligence findings.
Residents said the assailants appeared to be natives of the region.
They stopped people, checked their ID cards apparently to seek out members of the security forces, and announced their brief takeover of Ben Guerdane as « liberators ».
It was the second deadly clash in the border area in less than a week as Tunisia battles to prevent the large number of its citizens who have joined IS in Libya from returning to carry out attacks at home
On Monday, President Beji Caid Essebsi described the attack as « unprecedented » and was « maybe aimed at controlling » the border region, vowing to « exterminate these rats ».
It was the second deadly clash in the border area in less than a week as Tunisia battles to prevent the large number of its citizens who have joined IS in Libya from returning to carry out attacks at home.
Two deadly IS attacks on foreign tourists last year that have dealt a devastating blow to Tunisia’s tourism industry are believed to have been planned from Libya.
Jihadists have taken advantage of a power vacuum in Libya since the NATO-backed ouster of strongman Mummar Gaddafi in 2011 to set up bases in several areas, including near Sabratha.
Western military intelligence specialists say the deadly victory of the security forces against Ben Guerdane’s asaillants was « fragile » and the country will go through more bloody battles in other towns at least over the next five years