Tunisia Archives - Kaab TV

Somalia’s Puntland Identifies Origins of Influx of ISIS Militants

Kaab TV News Editor — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 20:10:40 +0000

BOSASO (Kaab TV) – Puntland counter-terrorism officials have identified the top countries where foreign terrorist fighters entering the region originate.

In late December, Puntland forces eliminated 12 foreign Islamic State (IS) fighters during a foiled car bomb attack on a military base in Dharjaalle, a remote mountainous area in Bari.

The regional forces have been engaged in operations against ISIS militants since late December when the counter-terror campaign was launched.

The bodies of the slain IS fighters were recovered, revealing that they included nationals from Ethiopia, Tunisia, Morocco, Tanzania, and other countries.

In January, Puntland security forces confiscated identity documents belonging to Mohamed Ahmed Al-Hawshani, a Saudi national believed to be a key financier of IS operations in the region.

Mohamed Ahmed Al Hawshani, the Saudi national who is an Islamic State militant , travelled via Egypt according to his passport and visa stamps on his passport.
This could give an insight into how wealthy terrorist members travel when entering Somalia.

Al Hawshani was not… pic.twitter.com/YmnaA7NbVN

— Kaab TV Breaking News (@KaabTV_Breaking) January 16, 2025

Top Countries of Origin for ISIS Fighters Heading to Puntland:

According to Puntland intelligence sources, foreign fighters entering the region mainly come from:

North Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan

Middle East: Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

East Africa: Ethiopia, Tanzania

While ISIS-Somalia remains smaller in scale compared to al-Shabaab, its continued presence in Puntland highlights the region’s vulnerability.

ISIS established itself in Puntland in 2015 when a faction led by Abdulqadir Mumin broke away from al-Shabaab and pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Operating mainly in the Golis Mountains, ISIS-Somalia has carried out assassinations and IED attacks targeting security forces and local leaders.

Puntland’s strategic location along the Gulf of Aden and its proximity to the Red Sea make it a crucial area for international maritime trade.

This geography has also made it a hotspot for smuggling networks and illicit activities, which militant groups exploit for funding.

The region’s security challenges are further complicated by the involvement of international actors and the broader geopolitical landscape.

The post Somalia’s Puntland Identifies Origins of Influx of ISIS Militants appeared first on Kaab TV.

Tunisia rounds up migrants at sea in unprecedented numbers

admin — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 06:43:31 +0000

OFF THE COAST OF SFAX, Tunisia (AP) — A young man wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with “Dior,” women clutching babies wrapped in blankets, children bundled in winter coats. All gingerly stepped from rickety boats into the sturdy craft of the Tunisian Maritime National Guard — and away from their dreams of life in Europe.

Cold, wet and heartbroken, they are among hundreds caught daily in overnight sweeps for migrant boats on the Mediterranean Sea.

“Sit down! Sit down! Sit down!” The shouted order confirmed the group was no longer in charge of their destiny. A woman sobbed.

On an overnight expedition with the National Guard last week, The Associated Press witnessed migrants pleading to continue their journeys to Italy in unseaworthy vessels, some taking on water. Over 14 hours, 372 people were plucked from the fragile boats.

Migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, are undertaking the perilous journey in unprecedented numbers. In the first three months of this year, 13,000 migrants were forced from their boats off the eastern Tunisian port city of Sfax, the main launching point. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of migrants heading to Europe, mostly to Italy but also to Malta, nearly doubled.

In a single day in March, a record 2,900 migrants were stopped in the Sfax region, which also includes the coastal city of Mahdia and the Kerkennah Islands, off the Sfax coast, said National Guard Brig. Gen. Sabeur Younes.

Migration to Europe has been on an upward climb, peaking in 2022 to 189,620, according to the International Organization for Migration. That’s the most since 2016, when close to 400,000 left their homelands, and one year after more than 1 million people, mostly Syrians fleeing war, sought refuge in 2015.

For many sub-Saharan Africans — who don’t need a visa to travel to Tunisia — the North African country serves as a stepping stone to Europe, while others come from Libya, which shares a border with Tunisia.

Each night, National Guard vessels comb the waters. Pulling up the dead is the grimmest part of the job. The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights said that 580 migrants died or disappeared at sea in 2022.

This week, Sfax officials were rushing to bury some 90 bodies washed up on beaches in the Sfax region in recent days, the official TAP news agency reported Tuesday. The morgue at the main hospital is full, making burials critical. No deaths or disappearances were reported the night the AP was present.

The groups of people plucked from the water during numerous sorties by small crafts are collected on a waiting National Guard mother ship and returned to Sfax.

Considered victims, not lawbreakers, those stopped en route are set free at the port, many to try again.

As of Monday, 36,610 migrants — including 2,882 Tunisians — had reached Italy since the start of the year. That is about four times the number who arrived in each of the two previous years, the Italian Interior Ministry said. Many head to Lampedusa, an island south of Sicily, some 180 kilometers (110 miles) from Sfax, a voyage that requires large measures of desperation and bravado.

“We are ready to drown and die to improve our situation,” said a Syrian who identified himself only as Mohamed, fearful like many migrants caught at sea of revealing his full name. “You know the situation in Syria, war and instability,” he said, adding that he had lost four family members in the war.

Italy is trying to stem the flow from Tunisia, and stabilize the North African country in the midst of its deepest economic crisis in a generation, with growing social and political tensions. This month Rome declared a state of emergency to help cope with the influx, then sweetened pressure on Tunisia, vowing a host of investments plus help in tough negotiations for an International Monetary Fund loan.

But those incentives won’t stop the recent, furious drive by people from sub-Saharan Africa and a booming business in cheaper metal boats that have fed the surge in migration from Tunisia.

Sub-Saharan Africans, some living illegally in Tunisia for years and working at low wages, began trying to make a quick exit after Tunisia’s increasingly authoritarian President Kais Saied demanded urgent measures in February to crack down on Black Africans, claiming they are part of a plot to erase his country’s identity. Some countries airlifted their citizens back home.

Many sub-Saharan Africans looked toward Europe as a getaway.

“If a Black man does something bad in Tunisia, then Tunisians see us all as bad and chase us away,” said a man from Ivory Coast who refused to give his name over concerns about the tense situation for Black Africans in Tunisia. “It’s not logical. We are all humans.”

Younes, the National Guard chief, suggested that the furor over sub-Saharan Africans contributed to increased attempted crossings. “After what happened, voila. They no longer have the means to stay here,” he said. “They’ll try everything to get to the other side.”

But another factor has enticed people to risk their lives for Europe.

Flimsy, hand-made metal boats — cheaper but less stable than wooden vessels — began appearing on the seas last year and quickly became a flourishing business. The boats are made clandestinely in the Sfax region.

Arrests are made, “but unfortunately there are always other artisans to build them,” Younes said.

Even foreigners are being recruited, like Egyptians to do the welding, he said. But only a fine awaits boat builders who are caught because officials have so far failed to establish a link with smugglers.

For the National Guard official, a critical link with Italy is missing.

“We need direct contact with the Italians for boats that risk sinking” but have exited Tunisia’s zone of rescue, Younes said, rejecting suggestions Tunisia is not doing enough to stopped the influx of migrants.

For the migrants, Tunisia is already doing too much — dashing their dreams.

“We want to leave Tunisia! Let us die at sea. It’s our choice,” cried out some forced off the boats. “It’s our destiny.”

Among those removed was an infant bundled in a camouflage fleece suit, her head covered by a hat with kitty ears, seemingly dressed for a special event that was abruptly canceled by the National Guard.

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Challenge for Tunisian democracy: Getting voters to show up

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 13:27:05 +0000

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia was once the Arab world’s hope for a new era of democracy. Now it’s in the midst of an election that’s more of an embarrassment than a model.

Barely 11% of voters turned out in the first round of parliamentary elections last month, boycotted by opposition Islamists and ignored by many Tunisians disillusioned with their leaders.

Ten candidates secured seats in the legislature even though not a single voter cast a ballot for them, simply because they ran unopposed. In seven constituencies, not even one candidate bothered to run.

President Kais Saied is pinning his hopes on Sunday’s second round of voting, which will wrap up his sweeping redesign of Tunisian politics that began when he suspended the previous Parliament in 2021.

The new body will have fewer powers than its predecessor and risks being little more than a rubber stamp for Saied. The president and many Tunisians blamed the previous parliament, led by the Islamist party Ennahdha, for political deadlock seen as worsening the country’s protracted economic and social crises.

Some Ennahdha officials have been jailed and the party is refusing to take part in the parliamentary elections, and has held repeated protests.

In last month’s first-round voting, 23 candidates secured seats outright in the 161-seat parliament: 10 of them because they ran unopposed and 13 because they won more than 50% of the vote, according to election officials.

In Sunday’s second round, voters are choosing among 262 candidates seeking to fill the 131 remaining seats. In the seven constituencies with no candidate, special elections will be held later to fill the seats, likely in March.

Since Saied was elected president in 2019 with 72% of the vote, his support among Tunisians has dulled.

Analysts note a growing crisis of confidence between citizens and the political class since Tunisia’s 2011 revolution unleashed Arab Spring uprisings across the region, and led Tunisians to create a new democratic political system celebrated with a Nobel Peace Prize in 2015.

Daily life for Tunisians seems to keep getting worse. At a Tunis food market, vendors struggled to sell strings of dates, fish heaped on ice, piles of eggplants and herbs as shoppers lamented rising prices. Few seemed to think Sunday’s vote would solve their problems.

Successive elections “have brought me nothing,” sighed Mohamed Ben Moussa, an employee of a private company.

Meanwhile, the economy is teetering.

According to the latest figures from the National Institute of Statistics, unemployment has reached more than 18% and exceeds 25% in the poor regions of the interior of the country, while inflation rate is 10.1%.

Tunisia has been suffering for several years from record budget deficits that affect its ability to pay its suppliers of medicines, food and fuel, causing shortages of milk, sugar, vegetable oil and other staples.

The Tunisian government is currently negotiating a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, which was frozen in December.

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