Tunisia National Guard members and military troops killed three alleged “terrorists” on Wednesday during an operation carried out in a hilly area in west-central Tunisia, according to Tunisia’s Interior Ministry, Africa News reported on Thursday.
The three were targeted as part of a continuing anti-terrorist operation in the hilly region of Kasserine, a town near the Algerian border.
“Terrorist fire wounded one soldier,” gendarmerie spokesperson Houcem Eddine Jebabli told AFP.
The operation which was “reinforced by an air force unit” resulted in the confiscation of explosives, ammunition, and firearms, according to the ministry.
Since its 2011 revolution and its remarkable transition to democracy that led to the so-called Arab Spring, Tunisia has been on a roller coaster of political stability and instability, marked by the transformation of its first democratically elected President in 2019 into an increasingly populist, authoritarian ruler over the last few years, amid a plummeting economy and significant curtailments of the press and people’s freedoms.
Jihadists have since exploited the government’s economic failures and unpopularity to gain public sympathy and strength, and have carried out attacks that have claimed the lives of soldiers, police officers, civilians, and foreign visitors.