Tunisia arrests two US citizens over ties with Daesh Takfiri terrorists

Tunisian special forces take position during clashes with militants in the southern town of Ben Guerdane, near the Libyan border, on March 7, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Two American citizens have been arrested in Tunisia on suspicion of ties with Daesh Takfiri terrorists.

According to Tunisian security officials speaking on Tuesday, the two suspects, allegedly brothers of 29 and 32 years of age, were from the US state of Michigan and were apprehended over possession of videos and pictures praising the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group (ISIL), Reuters reported.

A report by the Tunisian TV Channel Nessma TV said the two possessed plans to blow up a number of institutions, as well as calls to join the Takfiri group.

A spokesman for Tunisia’s Ministry of Interior confirmed the report, saying that the two brothers claimed to have been studying computer science at a university in Jendouba, north-western Tunisia.

He added that the two had rented a house in Jendouba and one of them had married a Tunisian woman who had traveled to Syria.

After local residents became suspicious of the pair and contacted authorities, Daesh-related content was discovered on their personal laptops.

Police sources said both suspects were “heavily bearded, unwashed and living in poor conditions”, adding that they had United Arab Emirates stamps in their passports.

Daesh terrorists, who were among the militants initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control parts of Iraq and Syria and Libya, where  they are engaged in crimes against humanity.

The relative calm in Tunisia has been punctured by growing instability in Libya, which has been in chaos since former dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, was toppled and later killed in 2011.

Tunisian forces have repeatedly clashed with Takfiri militants on the borders of Libya and Algeria over the past few years, but the March 7 fighting was unusually bloody.

In November 2015, a bomb attack by Daesh on a bus carrying presidential guards left 12 people dead in the capital city of Tunis.

Tunisian forensic police inspect the wreckage of a bus in the capital Tunis on November 25, 2015 in the aftermath of a bomb attack on the vehicle the previous day. (Photo by AFP)

In June the same year, an assailant armed with a rifle killed 38 people, mostly foreign tourists, on a beach in the Tunisian resort town of Sousse.

The attack came more than a month after two militants stormed the Bardo Museum in the capital and shot dead 21 people and injured 44 others, mainly foreign tourists.