Tunisia Reinforced Border to Libya to Counter Islamist Threat and Trafficking

Christof Lehmann (nsnbc) : Tunisia has reinforced its border to Libya with a 200 km long trench and barrier. Electronic monitoring systems will soon be deployed. The barrier is meant to prevent the militants from the Islamic State and others to gain a foothold in Tunisia, said the Defense Ministry. The barrier may also help stop the flow of militants and human trafficking from Tunisia via Libya.

ISIS_Libya_NEOTunisian Defense Minister Farhat Hachani said on Saturday that Tunisia has completed a 200-km (125 mile) barrier along its frontier with Libya to try to keep out Islamist militants.  Hachani added that there soon will be installed electronic monitoring systems to boost the efficiency of the barrier.

Tunisia’s neighbor Libya descended into chaos in 2011 after the onset of the so-called Arab Spring. The 2011 protests created a period of instability and transition in Tunisia. The situation in Libya, on the other hand, descended into chaos due to covert and later on overt military intervention by NATO and Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) member States. UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011) that allowed for the enforcement of a no fly zone, was used to deploy a de facto air force and special forces for Al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood associated terrorist brigades. Prominently among them was the Al-Qaeda linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) led by Abdelhakim Belhadj.

The Tunisian border fortification consists of an earth / sand wall and trenches, two kilometers from the Libyan border. The Tunisian government has contracted European and U.S.-American “military trainers” to train Tunisian forces in the use of electronic surveillance with camera and radar systems, said Defense Minister Hachani. The Minister added that the barrier also would help combat smuggling.

Barrier Works Both Ways

While the Tunisian Defense Ministry stressed that the barrier aimed at preventing that Islamic State (Daesh) fighters from Libya cross the border into Tunisia, the barrier will also be working the other way around.

According to figures from Tunisia’s Defense Ministry there are some 3,000 Tunisians who are fighting alongside the self-proclaimed Islamic State (a.k.a. Daesh / ISIS / ISIL) and other Islamist groups in Libya, other Northern African countries, as well as in Syria and Iraq.

Kidnapped Tunisian girls trafficked through Turkey to work as sex slaves for terrorists.

Kidnapped Tunisian girls trafficked through Turkey to work as sex slaves for terrorists.

Sex Jihad

The barrier may also help mitigate the risk of human trafficking. Libya has developed into a hotbed for the trafficking of refugees from northern Africa and the Middle East into Europe. Human trafficking also includes the trafficking of women to Islamist fighters in Syria. In 2013 Tunisian Interior Minister Lofti Ben Jeddou complained that Tunisian Women are being trafficked through Turkey for Sex Jihad in Syria.

The Interior Minister stressed that Tunisian girls are forced to satisfy the sexual needs of terrorists in Syria under the euphemism sexual jihad. Ben Jeddou complained that Turkey has become a bridgehead for sex jihad and declared that the trafficked Tunisian girls are forced into having sex with 20 – 30, in some cases 100 of the “holy warriors”. Ben Jeddou stressed, that most of them return pregnant.

Besides the psychological trauma that the young Tunisian girls suffer, the large number of children which will be born due to the forced sexual service will create a sociological time bomb in Tunisia. Another problem, which remains largely unaddressed, is that many of the girls who return have been infected with sexually transmittable diseases, including HIV.

CH/L – nsnbc 07.02.2016

Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2016/02/07/tunisia-reinforced-border-to-libya-due-to-islamist-threat/

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