TUNISIA: a ticking time-bomb
A recent report by a UN working group says that 5,500 young men have so far joined extremist groups: 4,000 going to fight in Syria and another 1,500 to Tunisia's neighbour Libya (see paragraph 26 here). The rate of flow is said to be growing and former Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali is succinct as to where the biggest risk of ISIS incursion lies:&nbsp;&ldquo;Beware, because the south of Tunisia is totally ready, favourable to that. They will perhaps open the doors to Libya, and then watch out, that is a time bomb.&rdquo; &nbsp;Tunisia is attempting to close the entire Libyan border and the UK Foreign Office labels the country's deep south as a no-go area..
Members of the Tunisian Army and National Guard, long kept poorly equipped and trained for political reasons by the former dictator President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, have received special forces training in the United States. The antiterrorism police have dealt swiftly with gunmen in several sieges in the capital, including the museum attack in March.

But the lower ranks remain poorly trained and motivated. The 14 soldiers killed last year were sitting down to break their fast during Ramadan and had failed to post any lookouts. The police units in the beach resort of Sousse took 20 minutes to respond to the attack in June, because they were away from their post at the time.

Of greater concern is the failure of the intelligence services to gain any forewarning of either attack. “They have not managed to infiltrate these groups,” said Ridha Tlili, a political analyst and director of the Ahmed Tlili Foundation for the Culture of Democracy. “They are always surprised.”

The interior minister, Najem Gharsalli, recently announced two successful operations against Okba Ibn Nafaa, a group linked to Al Qaeda in North Africa, but acknowledged that the organization had expanded its territory.

Some of the men killed by security forces had been in the process of carving out a base in southern Tunisia to facilitate communication and supply lines from Libya across Tunisia, he said.

But any steps toward greater security may come at a cost, and could themselves exacerbate the situation. Critics of the government crackdown say it has become too sweeping and threatens to restore harsh methods by the security forces that Tunisians hoped to leave behind after throwing off nearly 60 years of dictatorships.