CAIRO — Gunmen apparently crossing from Libya attacked a Tunisian border garrison on Monday, officials said, raising worries about Islamic State fighters and other militants gaining greater footholds in North Africa. More than 50 people were killed in the clashes.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but militants believed linked to the Islamic State carried out two major attacks last year in Tunisia targeting the country’s important tourism industry.
Tunisia’s president, Beji Caid Essebsi, called Monday’s strike “an unprecedented attack, planned and organized.”
“The majority of Tunisians are now in a state of war against barbarism,” he said from the capital, Tunis.
The assault followed skirmishes in the region last week between Tunisian forces and well-armed militiamen also believed to be based in Libya, where the Islamic State has expanded its presence amid political chaos that has divided the country into two rival zones.
Tunisian forces have been on elevated alert for possible cross-border incursions since a U.S. airstrike Feb. 19 targeting a suspected Islamic State training camp outside the Libyan town of Sabratha, near the Tunisian frontier.
Tunisia’s government tallied at least 53 deaths: 35 attackers, 11 members of Tunisia’s security forces and seven civilians, including a 12-year-old girl.
Tunisian officials closed border crossings hours after the predawn attack on the compound in Ben Guerdane, used by police and soldiers. In Paris, France’s foreign ministry identified the gunmen as “coming from Libyan territory.”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Heba Habib, Brian Murphy
