Tunisia Thwarts Alleged Terrorist Attack Targeting Tourist Areas

Tunisian security forces patrol along Habib Bourguiba avenue in the capital Tunis, on January 14, 2022. (AFP)
Tunisian security forces patrol along Habib Bourguiba avenue in the capital Tunis, on January 14, 2022. (AFP)
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Tunisia Thwarts Alleged Terrorist Attack Targeting Tourist Areas

Tunisian security forces patrol along Habib Bourguiba avenue in the capital Tunis, on January 14, 2022. (AFP)
Tunisian security forces patrol along Habib Bourguiba avenue in the capital Tunis, on January 14, 2022. (AFP)

Tunisian police thwarted an attack planned by a woman coming from Syria, where she received training "with terrorist groups," targeting tourist areas in the country, the interior ministry said on Friday.

It added that the woman, who was planning attacks with an explosive belt, was imprisoned.

The ministry said the woman returned to Tunisia from Syria via Turkey on Jan. 10 after spending a year of training in Syria, where she planned the attack.

Tunisian security forces have thwarted most militant plots in recent years and they have become more efficient at responding to those attacks that do occur, Western diplomats say.

In November police shot and wounded an extremist who sought to attack them with a knife and cleaver in the capital.

The last major attacks in Tunisia took place in 2015 when militants killed scores of people in two separate assaults at a museum in Tunis and a beach resort in Sousse.



UK Police Ban Palestine Action Protest Outside Parliament

File photo: People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Rabat, Morocco, 22 June 2025.  EPA/JALAL MORCHIDI
File photo: People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Rabat, Morocco, 22 June 2025. EPA/JALAL MORCHIDI
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UK Police Ban Palestine Action Protest Outside Parliament

File photo: People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Rabat, Morocco, 22 June 2025.  EPA/JALAL MORCHIDI
File photo: People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Rabat, Morocco, 22 June 2025. EPA/JALAL MORCHIDI

British police have banned campaign group Palestine Action from protesting outside parliament on Monday, a rare move that comes after two of its members broke into a military base last week and as the government considers banning the organization.

The group said in response that it had changed the location of its protest on Monday to Trafalgar Square, which lies just outside the police exclusion zone, reported Reuters.

The pro-Palestinian organization is among groups that have regularly targeted defense firms and other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza.

British media have reported that the government is considering proscribing, or effectively banning, Palestine Action, as a terrorist organization, putting it on a par with al-Qaeda or ISIS.

London's Metropolitan Police said late on Sunday that it would impose an exclusion zone for a protest planned by Palestine Action outside the Houses of Parliament - a popular location for protests in support of a range of causes.

"The right to protest is essential and we will always defend it, but actions in support of such a group go beyond what most would see as legitimate protest," Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said.

"We have laid out to Government the operational basis on which to consider proscribing this group."

Palestine Action's members are alleged to have caused millions of pounds of criminal damage, assaulted a police officer with a sledgehammer and, in the incident last week, damaged two military aircraft, Rowley added.