Security investigations carried out by the Tunisian Interior Ministry with a terrorist element, who was arrested in August in Kasserine, have resulted in breaking up cells that support terrorist elements in Kasserine, Sidi Bouzid, and Jendouba governorates.
In light of these investigations, security forces arrested eight people, who were involved in terrorist cells, and kept them in detention after coordinating with the judicial authorities concerned with the counter-terrorism file. They also seized three vehicles that were used to secure terrorist movements and deliver supplies.
On Tuesday, the Tunisian Interior Ministry revealed the results of its investigations with the detainee from Kasserine, confirming that the other eight detainees were proven to be communicating with terrorists, hiding in mountainous areas, providing them with supplies, money and mobile phones and facilitating their movement away from security surveillance.
The terrorist element, according to the ministry, admitted to being linked to two terrorist elements, who were killed by the National Guard units in Sidi Bouzid city on April. He also confessed his involvement in transporting them from Kasserine mountains to Sidi Bouzid and securing their movement inside the city before they were eliminated by counter-terrorism forces.
Organizations specialized in terrorism in Tunisia estimate the number of ‘sleeper cells’ to be at least 300 and confirm that they pose a threat to security and stability, especially if they continue to deal with terrorist elements hiding in the mountainous areas of the west or with thousands of Tunisians affiliated with terrorist organizations in hotbeds of tension in Libya, Syria, and Iraq.
The security operation that was carried out by the anti-terrorist units last August in Jebel Bireno resulted in killing two dangerous terrorist elements and arresting one.
The arrested terrorist element provided the security forces with valuable information that led to breaking up sleeper cells that communicating with terrorists who carry out weapons in the fact of the Tunisian state.