Reports: Head of Tunisia’s Qalb Tounes Party Held in Algeria

Nabil Karoui seen here in 2019. (AFP)
Nabil Karoui seen here in 2019. (AFP)
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Reports: Head of Tunisia’s Qalb Tounes Party Held in Algeria

Nabil Karoui seen here in 2019. (AFP)
Nabil Karoui seen here in 2019. (AFP)

Liberal party leader Nabil Karoui, runner-up in Tunisia’s 2019 presidential election that saw Kais Saied elected, has been arrested in Algeria along with his MP brother, media reports said Monday.

The privately owned Radio Mosaique FM said border police arrested the Qalb Tounes party chief and his brother Ghazi Karoui in the Tebessa region of northeast Algeria.

Senior party official Oussama Khelifi told reporters “official information” was still being awaited.

The arrest of the brothers has not yet been confirmed by the authorities in either country.

“We have not heard from Karoui for a week,” Khelifi said.

Riadh Al-Nouioui, spokesman for Kasserine court in central Tunisia, told AFP that “the authorities are investigating two people suspected of helping the Karoui brothers escape” to Algeria.

Nabil Karoui founded the private Tunisian channel Nessma TV, which is partly owned by Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Karoui has been under investigation since 2017 in a money laundering and tax evasion case.

He was arrested in 2019 and spent more than a month in prison at the height of the presidential election campaign.

He was freed but rearrested last December and spent six months in pre-trial detention before being let out again in June 2021.

Karoui’s presidential campaign focused on the fight against poverty and his opposition to Islamist politics despite allying himself with the Islamist-inspired Ennahda party.

He lost out to Saied, a retired law professor and political newcomer, as the electorate rejected the political class that had ruled since the 2011 revolution.

On July 25, Saied dismissed parliament, sacked the prime minister and granted himself sweeping powers, invoking the constitution as justification.

Since then, there has been a wave of travel bans and house arrests targeting parliamentarians, magistrates and businessmen in an anti-corruption purge.



Drone Attack Targets Tawke Oilfield in Iraq's Kurdistan

General view of the Sarsang oilfield operated by HKN Energy, after a drone attack, in Duhok province, Iraq, July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
General view of the Sarsang oilfield operated by HKN Energy, after a drone attack, in Duhok province, Iraq, July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
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Drone Attack Targets Tawke Oilfield in Iraq's Kurdistan

General view of the Sarsang oilfield operated by HKN Energy, after a drone attack, in Duhok province, Iraq, July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
General view of the Sarsang oilfield operated by HKN Energy, after a drone attack, in Duhok province, Iraq, July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari

A drone attack targeted an oilfield operated by Norwegian oil and gas firm DNO in Tawke, in the Zakho Administration area of northern Iraq, on Thursday, the Kurdistan region's counter-terrorism service said.

The attack is the second on the DNO-operated field since a wave of drone attacks began early this week.

DNO, which operates the Tawke and Peshkabour oilfields in the Zakho area that borders Türkiye, temporarily suspended production at the fields following explosions that caused no injuries, the counter-terrorism service said.

DNO did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

This week's drone attacks have reduced oil output from oilfields in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region by between 140,000 to 150,000 barrels per day, two energy officials said on Wednesday, as infrastructure damage forced multiple shutdowns.