Police chiefs in Tunisia fired following museum attack
Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid has fired six police chiefs in the days following the deadly attack on the country’s famous Bardo Museum.
The Prime Minister’s office said in a statement that several security deficiencies were noted on a recent visit, leading to the recent onslaught of layoffs.
Prime Minister Essid noted that “shortcomings” in the country’s security system prevented police services from being “thorough enough” in their protection of the museum.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the attack on the museum in the country’s capital, Tunis. 22 people – mostly European tourists – were killed.
The attack is the deadliest that Tunisia has seen since 2011, when the country was taken by the uprising that led to the overthrow of long-term ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
Security forces, the President of Tunisia revealed in a statement, killed two of three suspected gunmen.
“He won’t get far,” President Beji Caid Essebsi said of the third man involved, who is not thought to have been involved in the actual raid of the museum.
Other suspects are also said to have been arrested in connection with the attack.
The gunmen are said to have trained with ISIS in Libya. Two of the attackers were identified, in footage released by the interior ministry, as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui.
Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennadha, the country’s moderate Islamist party, believes that Tunisia will continue feel the threat of attack so long as Libya – which shares a border with the country – remains unstable.
Ghannouchi told the BBC that even if ISIS could not establish a foothold themselves inside Tunisian borders, young men such as those involved in this attack, armed in Libya to easily cross borders, would become difficult to control.
In recent years, according to the BBC, Tunisia has been the largest exporter of jihadists in the region. Many who leave the country end up fighting alongside ISIS in Syria.
-Compiled by Alyssa Ottema