{"id":23753,"date":"2016-03-08T00:19:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T00:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/tunisia-closes-border-with-libya-after-fierce\/"},"modified":"2016-03-08T00:20:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T00:20:00","slug":"tunisia-closes-border-with-libya-after-fierce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/tunisia-closes-border-with-libya-after-fierce\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunisia closes border with Libya after fierce clashes"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Bloody raid on army and police posts in Ben Gardane killed 53 people, mostly attackers who infiltrated the country.}<\/p>\n

Tunisia’s border with Libya was closed on Tuesday after a brazen attack by suspected ISIL fighters on a frontier town left at least 53 people dead.<\/p>\n

Gunmen attacked the eastern town of Ben Gardane on Monday and fighting continued past nightfall. <\/p>\n

Tunisian Prime Minister Hassid Essid said the assault was an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attempt to carve out a stronghold on the border.<\/p>\n

“This is an unprecedented attack, planned and organised. Its goal was probably to take control of this area and to announce a new emirate,” Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi said.<\/p>\n

Tunisian interior and defense ministers traveled to the town to oversee heightened border protection operations on Tuesday, according to a joint statement.<\/p>\n

Deadly attack in Tunisia ‘could just be the beginning’
\nThe attackers simultaneously targeted an army barracks and police posts with heavy weaponry, including rocket-propelled grenades.<\/p>\n

The government imposed a curfew in Ben Gardane.<\/p>\n

A security and military campaign began last week in Ben Gardane after Tunisian security officials said “terrorist groups” had infiltrated the country.<\/p>\n

Officials said the campaign followed raids in Libya against ISIL.<\/p>\n

Fighters trained in Libya carried out several deadly attacks inside Tunisia last year.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Ben Gardane, said the strategically important town is regarded as the “gateway to Libya”.<\/p>\n

It serves as a hub for arms trafficking and smuggling of everyday goods.<\/p>\n

“Tunisia has built a fence along the border with Libya, but that doesn’t seem to stop the movement of armed attackers coming in from Libya and targeting the army and security forces,” she said.<\/p>\n

“In the past week we have seen several incidents of people coming across.”<\/p>\n

Last Wednesday, troops killed five armed men in a firefight outside the town, in which a civilian was also killed and a commander wounded.<\/p>\n

Deadly attacks by ISIL on foreign holidaymakers last year, which dealt a devastating blow to Tunisia’s tourism industry, are believed to have been planned from Libya.<\/p>\n

\"At<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Bloody raid on army and police posts in Ben Gardane killed 53 people, mostly attackers who infiltrated the country.} Tunisia’s border with Libya was closed on Tuesday after a brazen attack by suspected ISIL fighters on a frontier town left at least 53 people dead. Gunmen attacked the eastern town of Ben Gardane on Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23753"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23753"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}