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Suspected Accomplices Arrested in Tunisian Museum Attack Suspected Accomplices Arrested in Tunisian Museum Attack
(about 4 hours later)
CAIRO — Tunisian authorities have arrested nine people suspected of helping the two gunmen who mounted a deadly attack on a museum in Tunis, the office of the Tunisian president said on Thursday. Officials said they had not established a link between any known terrorist group and either of the gunmen, who were killed by security forces responding to the attack. CAIRO — The Islamic State and other extremists on Thursday sought to claim responsibility for the deadly attack that killed at least 21 people at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis. The authorities there arrested at least nine people suspected of being accomplices as major cruise lines indefinitely suspended stops in Tunisia, a sign of the looming toll on the crucial tourist industry.
The statement from the president’s office said that at least four of the nine arrested suspects had direct connections to the attack at the museum, and the others were associates. The assault was the latest evidence that the extremist victories and cruelties in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere are emboldening like-minded militants to acts of violence around the world — including recent attacks in Paris, Ottawa and Sydney, Australia.
Officials said that because of the threat of terrorism, the Tunisian Army was deploying troops to secure the country’s major cities. The eagerness of the Islamic State and other jihadists to associate themselves with the killings in Tunis underscored the looseness of their proliferating networks, recalling the distant ties to both the Qaeda and Islamic State networks among the assailants who attacked the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris two months ago.
The gunmen, who killed at least 20 people in a midday attack on Wednesday at the National Bardo Museum, were identified by officials as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui. The massacre of tourists on Wednesday, scholars said, was in some ways a throwback to the tactics that older militant groups had relied on in the 1980s and ’90s. But the attack also comes at a time when some Islamist militants elsewhere, most notably in Egypt, are gravitating to the idea that economic interests may be a vulnerable point they can exploit to destabilize governments.
Prime Minister Habib Essid said in an interview with RTL, a French radio network, that Mr. Laabidi had previously caught the attention of Tunisian intelligence agencies, but not for “anything special.” He said that the Tunisian authorities were working with other governments to learn more about the backgrounds and motives of the gunmen. A statement about the attack posted by the Afriqiyah Media, a jihadi forum often used by Uqba bin Nafa, a Tunisian group linked to Al Qaeda, even included graphs and price charts to show the economic pain the museum assault had already inflicted.
Two Spanish tourists who hid inside the museum to escape the attackers were discovered there on Thursday morning, according to news reports citing the Spanish Foreign Ministry. Tunisian health officials said that at least one person who was wounded in the attack died overnight, raising the death toll to at least 20, not including the two assailants. Celebrating “the sharp collapse of the Tunisian markets after a simple operation involving only two individuals,” the statement asked: “What do you think would happen if an organized attack happened, and simultaneously on several military, vital, and tourist targets?”
Tunisians crowded through the gates into the museum compound on Thursday afternoon, bearing flowers and banners protesting the violence of the previous day. They lay wreathes and lit candles before dark red pools of blood still visible at the base of a line of palm trees. Splashes of blood marked the sidewalk and the wall of the museum where some of the victims fell, and a bloodied stretcher stood against a tree. Some analysts said they saw an ominous trend. “The shooting spree tactic is really catching on, and that is going to be a huge headache for security services around the world,” said Will McCants, a scholar of Islamist militancy at the Brookings Institution, noting the similarities with recent attacks on the Canadian Parliament and Charlie Hebdo.
“We came to say the Tunisians are against terrorism,” said Nourredine Senoussi, a retired public servant who came with a friend to lay a wreath. “We have to unite with one voice.” Brian Fishman, a researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington, said he, too, foresaw more low-tech assaults, “because these attacks are easy.”
Police officers at the scene said that the gunmen who attacked the museum had hidden their assault rifles under their jackets, and had taken advantage of the arrival of busloads of tourists at the museum to slip through the guarded entrance gates. There were only two gunmen, the officers said, declining to give their names in accordance with Police Department rules. Tunisian officials said Thursday that they had not yet found evidence tying either of the two gunmen to any known terrorist group. Both men were killed by security forces in a gunfight at the museum, and the authorities identified them as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui, both Tunisian.
They said the gunmen opened fire as soon as the tourists began disembarking from the buses in the parking lot in front of the museum. They then ran to the side of the building and threw three grenades at the police guarding the nearby National Assembly building before doubling back into the museum. Prime Minister Habib Essid said in an interview with the French radio network RTL that Mr. Laabidi had caught the attention of the country’s intelligence agencies in the past, but not for “anything special.”
“I was guarding the assembly building,” one police lieutenant in a crumpled suit recalled. “I led about 100 tourists out from the museum to safety. They were all old people.” He added, “I did not sleep all night. It was unacceptable what they did here.” The Tunisian authorities were working with other governments to learn more about the men’s backgrounds and motives, he said, adding at a news conference later that Tunisia was obtaining military equipment from allies, including eight helicopters equipped for nighttime surveillance, to aid its hunt for militants. Mr. Essid did not specify which countries, but the United States has already approved the sale to Tunisia of a number of UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters.
Amel Jeddi, whose husband, a police officer, was killed in an attack in 2011, said of the gunmen: “They are against the state and security forces. It’s all political. They do not want Tunisia to be stable. They want to create chaos and make the country like Libya and Syria.” “Such operations take place in the U.S., in France, in Egypt,” Mr. Essid said of the attack.
At a hospital across town, a group of Italian relatives clung to one another as they walked down a sloping ramp to the morgue to identify the bodies of some of the victims of the attack. Two men embraced in a long hug as a grandmother stood by. The three then entered the building arm in arm without speaking to reporters. The authorities said the Tunisian Army would be deployed to cities to bolster the police, and Mr. Essid asked Tunisians for their forbearance regarding searches and checkpoints.
Tunisia, the lone success among the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, has struggled to cope with Islamist militant groups as it consolidates its transition to democracy after the removal of the longtime strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. “We are now in a phase of chasing after some terrorists who contributed indirectly to yesterday’s operation in the Bardo Museum,” he said. “The citizens must deal with this process with the utmost good will.”
The country’s economic difficulties and turbulent politics after decades of repression have also helped make it a leading source of foreign fighters joining the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, in its battles in Syria and Iraq. President Beji Caid Essebsi said in a statement that four of the nine suspects under arrest had direct connections to the attack. He did not specify the exact reasons leading to the arrest of the other five. News reports indicated that the police had also arrested members of the family of one of the gunmen.
Supporters of the Islamic State celebrated the attack in Tunis and circulated a video first posted online in December that warned in general terms of violence to come. In the video, a prominent Tunisian militant, Boubakr Hakim, known as Abu Moqatel, is seen claiming responsibility for the assassination of two left-leaning politicians and urging his countrymen to take up arms for the Islamic State. Separately, two Spanish tourists emerged Thursday from a hiding place inside the museum, according to news reports citing the Spanish Foreign Ministry. Tunisian health officials said that at least two people who were wounded in the attack died overnight, raising the death toll to at least 21, not including the two gunmen.
“You will not live in safety as long as Tunisia is not ruled by Islam,” he says, taunting other Tunisians for failing to join his fight. “Women are more courageous than you are.” Tunisia, the Arab Spring’s lone success, is seeking to consolidate its transition to democracy after the uprising four years ago that removed the longtime strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
By Thursday there were multiple attempts by various groups to claim some association with the attack, but none could be immediately confirmed. The government has struggled to defeat Islamist militant groups, based mainly in the area around Mount Chaambi near the Algerian border. At the same time, the simmering frustrations of many young men with a sputtering economy and police abuses, which continued after decades of autocracy, have helped make Tunisia a leading source of foreign fighters for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, in its battles in Syria and Iraq.
Islamic State supporters circulated a terse audio statement on Thursday from one of the group’s media outlets, claiming responsibility for the attack and naming the gunmen under the aliases Zakaria al-Tunisi and Abu Anas al-Tunisi. Supporters of the Islamic State on Thursday circulated a terse audio statement from one of its media outlets claiming responsibility and naming the gunmen under the aliases Zakaria al-Tunisi and Abu Anas al-Tunisi.
“We tell the apostates who sit on the chest of Muslim Tunisia: Wait for the glad tidings of what will harm you, impure ones, for what you have seen today is the first drop of the rain, God willing,” the group said in the audio statement, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that tracks extremist groups. “You will not enjoy security, nor be pleased with peace, while the Islamic State has men like these,” the statement said. “We tell the apostates who sit on the chest of Muslim Tunisia: Wait for the glad tidings of what will harm you, impure ones, for what you have seen today is the first drop of the rain, God willing,” the group said in the audio statement, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that tracks extremist groups.
On Wednesday night, a Tunisian militant group calling itself the Uqba ibn Nafi Battalion posted a more detailed message, praising the attack and including details about it that contradicted reports from the Tunisian authorities. The Uqba ibn Nafi group has pledged its loyalty to Al Qaeda’s North African branch, known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. “You will not enjoy security, nor be pleased with peace, while the Islamic State has men like these,” the statement said.
Its message named the attackers, but it rendered their names as Yassin al-Obeidi and Sabr al-Khachnaoui, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group. The statement offered no evidence that the group had played a role in the attack, and its claims could not be confirmed.
Some observers questioned whether that message had originated from Uqba ibn Nafi, or had merely been circulated by the group. The Islamic State was not the only group to seek to associate itself with the attack. Afriqiyah Media posted a more detailed message recounting the chronology. Yet much of what it listed could have been gleaned from news media reports, and some of its assertions contradicted the accounts of witnesses and Tunisian officials.
The message also included photographs that appeared to show the bodies of the attackers — young men with assault rifles, each lying in a pool of blood and wearing running shoes and casual clothes. Tunisian officials had said the attackers wore military uniforms. Its message rendered the names of the gunmen as Yassin al-Obeidi and Sabr al-Khachnaoui, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group. Photographs included in the message appeared to show the bodies of the attackers — young men with assault rifles, each lying in a pool of blood and wearing running shoes and casual clothes. Tunisian officials had said the attackers wore military uniforms.
The message appeared to stop short of claiming responsibility for the attack or of identifying a group behind it. “We will not answer this now, in order to listen to more of your ridiculous analysis and your weeping and crying on television and radio, and to laugh more at the inefficiency of your apostate masters,” it said. Instead of claiming responsibility, Afriqiyah Media at times appeared to tease the authorities. “We will not answer this now, in order to listen to more of your ridiculous analysis and your weeping and crying on television and radio, and to laugh more at the inefficiency of your apostate masters,” it said.
It also gave a detailed account of the operation; it was unclear whether the account was based on inside knowledge of the attacks or had merely been gleaned from reports in the Tunisian news media. In citing the details, the message mocked the spokesman for the Tunisian Interior Ministry, Mohamed Ali al-Arawi, by name. Most of all, the message reveled in the damage done to the Tunisian economy at such a bargain price. “Just 2 Kalashnikovs, 4 hand grenades, and some bullets,” Afriqiyah Media’s statement said. “The total price did not exceed four thousand dinars.”
“These are details of the operation, O Arawi, O liar, O apostate,” the message said. “Do not search much and lie to the silly ones, your companions, and claim that you are still searching and investigating and want to know what happened.” “Instead of spending three thousand dinars to enter Libya via smuggling for the pursuit of martyrdom, you can purchase a weapon and attack in the heart of the state of the tyrant and kill its police and soldiers,” the statement encouraged.
The message also mocked Ennahda, a party of moderate Islamists who denounced the attack. It reveled in the decline in the Tunisian stock market after the attack, and suggested that sympathizers who were reluctant to combat security forces should consider attacking unarmed tourists, whose spending is crucial to the Tunisian economy. Scholars of extremism said this attack harkened back to an earlier era of jihadi violence, like the massacre by Egyptian militants with assault rifles of more than 60 people outside an ancient temple in Luxor in 1997. Then, too, the extremists hoped that driving away tourists would undermine the economy and thus weaken and topple the state.
Westerners and Israelis, the group suggested, were ideal targets. “You should hunt them everywhere, especially the French, the Americans, the British and the Israelis,” the message said. “Lure them in roads, lodges, dance clubs and bars. Slaughter them on the beaches, drown them in the sea, poison them on the roads by giving them something poisoned to eat, break their skull with a stone, or suffocate them with a pillow in the room.” Instead, the cruelty of the slaughter and the damage to the economy alienated average Egyptians and strengthened support for President Hosni Mubarak. The Luxor attack cleared the way for a decisive crackdown.
Many of the tourists who were visiting the museum at the time of the attack were cruise-ship passengers. Costa Cruises, one of two companies whose ships were docked near Tunis on Wednesday, said on Thursday that it will cancel all future stops at Tunisian ports indefinitely, dealing a substantial blow to Tunisia’s tourism industry. Most extremists had accepted that attacks on tourists were “a model that across the jihadi world has always failed,” said Mokhtar Awad, a researcher at the Center for American Progress in Washington, but the Tunisian attackers appear to have dusted it off. “It shows they have obviously not thought it through,” he said, “People are going to start to hate you.”
“The security of guests and crew is the priority for Costa Crociere, and it’s a necessary condition to offer serene and pleasant holidays,” the company said in a statement, using the Italian version of its name. It added that Tunisian ports “will be replaced by alternative stops, which are being defined.” Some young Islamists in Egypt have also begun carrying out violent attacks against business interests as a means of bringing down the military-backed government. But they have so far mainly attacked empty buildings in an attempt to minimize casualties, seeking to avoid triggering a popular backlash or reinforcing the police state.
A spokeswoman for MSC Cruises, the other company that had a ship in Tunis on Wednesday, said it was weighing a similar decision. The spectacular success of other extremists around the region, however, appears to have emboldened even amateurs.
Their interest is visible on social media, where some aspiring jihadists have begun using the hashtag, in Arabic, “Lone Wolf.”
In one Twitter message this week that appeared to come from Egypt, for example, a user who called himself roughly Abu Mos’ab the Cairene, laid out his dreams very plainly: “Brothers, a very important request,” he wrote. “I want any video to learn how to shoot, or to learn how to use guns.”