KASSERINE, Tunisia: A Tunisian policeman was killed in clashes with gunmen in Kasserine on the border with Algeria yesterday, a security source said, adding that military reinforcements were sent to the region. “The clashes are continuing,” he said in the late afternoon, adding that two helicopters and armoured vehicles were dispatched to the area, considered a haven for smugglers.
A guard at an oil company spotted “five suspicious bearded men” near the Tunisian district of Bou Chebka, two kilometres from the Algerian border, and notified police, the source said.
The head of the police station, Anis Jlassi, was shot and killed by the gunmen and four of his men wounded, he added. Four gunmen, probably “arms smugglers,” were involved in the clashes, the security official said, but was unable to specify if they were Salafists, or hardliners. The interior ministry was not immediately available for comment. On Saturday, a Tunisian security source reported that police had seized guns and explosives and arrested two men from the Salafist stronghold of Jendouba, north of Kasserine, in the Fernana area near the Algerian border.
In an interview published on Friday, Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki expressed concern at arms trafficking in North Africa since the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
AFP
