Militants attack Tunisian forces near Libyan border, 50 killed

Dozens of Islamist fighters
stormed through the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdan
near the Libyan border on Monday attacking army
and police posts in a raid that killed at least 50
people, including civilians, the government and
residents said.
Local television broadcast images of soldiers and
police crouched in doorways and on rooftops as
gunshots echoed in the center of the town. Bodies of
dead militants lay in the streets near the military
barracks after the army regained control.
Authorities sealed off the nearby beach resort town
of Djerba, a popular destination for foreign and
local tourists, imposed a curfew on Ben Guerdan
and closed two border crossings with Libya after the
attack.
"I saw a lot of militants at dawn, they were
running with their Kalashnikovs," Hussein, a
resident, told Reuters by telephone. "They said they
were Islamic State and they came to target the army
and the police."
It was not clear if the attackers crossed over the
border, but it was the type of militant operation
Tunisia's government had feared as it prepares for
potential spillover from Libya, where Islamic State
militants have gained ground.
Since its 2011 revolt to oust ruler Zine El-Abidine
Ben Ali, Tunisia has struggled with Islamist
militancy at home and over the border. Militants
trained in jihadist camps in Libya carried out two
attacks last year in Tunisia.
"This was an unprecedented, well-organized attack,"
President Beji Caid Essebsi told local radio. "But the
people in the south can be confident the army and
police will win against this barbarity across the
border."
Soldiers killed 33 militants and arrested six, the
Interior Ministry said. Hospital and security sources
said at least seven civilians were killed along with
ten soldiers.
"If the army had not been ready, the terrorists
would have been able to raise their flag over Ben
Guerdan and gotten a symbolic victory," said Abd
Elhamid Jelassi, vice president of the Islamist party
Ennahda, part of the government coalition.
REGIONAL JIHADISTS
More than 3,000 Tunisians have left to fight with
Islamic State and other groups in Syria and Iraq.
Tunisian security officials say increasingly they are
returning to join the militant group in Libya.
Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi five years ago,
Libya has slipped into chaos, with two rival
governments and armed factions struggling for
control. Islamic State has grown in the turmoil,
taking over Sirte city and drawing foreign recruits.
Tunisian jihadists are taking a lead role in Islamic
State camps in Libya, Tunisian security sources say.
Tunisian forces have been on alert for possible
militant infiltrations since last month when a U.S.
air strike targeted mostly Tunisian Islamic State
militants at a camp near the border in Libya's
Sabratha.
Western military advisers are starting to train
Tunisian border forces to help better protect the
frontier with electronic surveillance and drones and
authorities have built a trench and barrier to help
stop militants crossing.
Islamist militant gunmen trained in Libyan jihadist
camps carried out two of the three major attacks on
Tunisia last year, including assaults on the Tunis
Bardo museum and a Sousse beach hotel targeting
foreign tourists.