Tunisia extends emergency rule

Fifth time extension

TUNIS, July 20, (AFP): Tunisia announced on Tuesday that a state of emergency in force since a deadly attack on the presidential guard last November will be extended by two months.

A statement said that after consulting the premier and head of the national assembly, President Beji Caid Essebsi decided that the measure would be extended from July 21 for two months.

The law allows the authorities to ban strikes and meetings that might “provoke or maintain disorder”, to temporarily close theatres and bars, and to “take every measure to secure control of the press and all types of publications”.

The North African nation, birthplace of the Arab Spring, has suffered from a wave of jihadist violence since the 2011 revolution that ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The Islamic State group claimed brazen attacks last year on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis and a beach resort that killed 59 tourists.

After a suicide bombing in the capital in November which killed 12 members of the presidential guard and was claimed by IS, authorities declared the state of emergency and a curfew in the capital.

The curfew was later lifted, but the state of emergency has remained in place and is now being extended for the fifth time.

On March 7, dozens of jihadists attacked security installations in the town of Ben Guerdane on the border with Libya. An Israeli officer adjusts the beret of an Israeli honor guard soldier before an official memorial ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, at the military cemetery of Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on July 19. Israel is marking a decade since its 2006 war with its ‘main enemy’ Hezbollah, but the Lebanese militia’s involvement in Syria has made another conflict less likely for now. (AFP)