Tunisia: the latest Islamist outrage
Andrew Coates, over at Tendance Coatesy , reacts to the latest Islamist outrage:
‘Hostage situation’ in Tunis as parliament, museum come under attack
The Tunisian Parliament has come under attack, with lawmakers saying gunfire can be heard at the scene. Local reporters tweet militants entered the Bardo Museum through the parliament, taking several tourists hostage.
Militants dressed as soldiers are attacking the Tunisia Assembly, local journalists say. The parliament is located in Bardo Palace, which is also home to a national museum.
Several tourists have been taken hostage, according to Radio Mosaique FM.
Tunisian security forces have surrounded at least two militants believed to be holding hostages at a museum in the country’s parliament grounds.
Private radio station Radio Mosaique said that three men dressed in military-style clothing may have taken hostages inside the museum.
Latest news directly from Tunisia talks of around 20 Tourist hostages.
Un grand nombre de touristes ont été pris en otages par 3 ou 4 individus armés qui se sont présentés au musée en tenue militaire.
D’après les premiers faits rapportés il y aurait un certain nombre de blessés, voir même de morts, enregistrés suite au coups de feu tirés sur les tourristes qui venaient de descendre du bus qui les transportait au musée.
D’après les déclarations faites par un guide touristiques au correspondant de mosaïque fm sur place une vingtaine de touristes dont retenus en otages , vu qu’une centaine d’entre eux ont pu être évacués d’urgence par la porte arrière du musée dès que les premiers coups de feu ont été tirés.
Direct Info (Tunsia).
Libération reports.
EN DIRECT
Des tirs ont été entendus au musée national, situé dans le même bâtiment que le Parlement ce mercredi.
More:
There were unverified reports that a foreign tourist or tourists may have been taken hostage at the Bardo museum.
Shortly before, exchanges of gunfire were heard at Tunisia‘s parliament building, the country’s state news agency reported.
Parliamentary committees suspended their meetings as MPs were ordered to assemble in the main chamber, Islamist MP Monia Brahim told AFP.
A witness near the parliament told Reuters a large police presence was moving to evacuate the building.
The Bardo museum chronicles Tunisia’s history and includes one of the world’s largest collections of Roman mosaics.
Tunisia has struggled with violence by Islamic extremists since overthrowing a dictator in 2011.
This does not come out of the blue,
The Ministry of Interior announced on Monday the arrest of 22 militants working in four alleged terrorist cells recruiting young Tunisians to fight in Libya. The ministry also announced an additional 10 other militants were also arrested while attempting to cross into Libya to join militant groups.
The two successful operations were led by the National Unity of Investigation for Terrorist Crimes.
According to the Ministry of Interior, the four cells discovered operating in Kairouan were responsible for recruiting young Tunisians, with a focus on targeting students to join militants in Libya. “This terrorist network is collaborating with dangerous Tunisian terrorists active in Libya, and working to supervise training camps with their counterparts from different countries,” a statement by the Ministry of Interior said.
The Ministry of Interior also stated it seized around ten thousand dinars and 200 Euros in cash, iPads, memory cards as well as mobile phones.
And,
Al Qaeda admit Tunisian terror attack
A known al Qaeda spokesman said in a voice recording broadcast today that the militant group was behind a deadly suicide attack at a Tunisian synagogue in April which killed 21 people, including 14 Germans.
It was the first direct claim of al Qaeda involvement in the blast near El Ghriba synagogue on the resort island of Djerba. German government ministers had earlier said there was evidence linking the blast to the militant network.
“This operation was carried out by al Qaeda network. A youth could not see his brothers in Palestine butchered and murdered…(while) he saw Jews cavorting in Djerba,” Sulaiman bu Ghaith said in the undated recording broadcast by Qatar-based al-Jazeera channel.
“So this spirit of jihad surged and he (the al Qaeda member) carried out this successful operation, may God accept it,” said bu Ghaith, who emerged as an al Qaeda spokesman after the September 11 attacks, which Washington blames on al Qaeda.
It was not clear when the tape was received or where bu Ghaith was speaking from. He has spoken about al Qaeda activities on Web sites and Middle Eastern news channels.
For many people in the world, including this Blog, Tunisia is a hero nation, and its people have shown their best side in recent years.
If we hear any Stop the War Coalition or SWP spokesperson opining on this unfolding tragedy – no doubt to say that Tunisia will be safe from Islamic killers if it stops invading the Middle East – we shall vomit.
NB: breaking news (as of Wednesday 6.00pm, UK time):
Shiraz Socialist 
Aaron Aarons said,
March 21, 2015 at 5:49 am
It’s clear that you and the AWL don’t fight Islamism from the viewpoint of competing with it for hegemony in the struggle of the masses of the Muslim countries against capitalism, imperialism, settler colonialism and their local rulers. If you did, you wouldn’t, even while properly criticizing such acts, be singling out the killing of 20 or so Western tourists (or even less the killings of imperialist soldiers in London or Ontario) as an especially horrifying event, worthy of so much attention, in a world where there are so many other horrors, including many committed by Islamists but far more committed by capitalist predators with no religious motivation.
Moreover, you don’t show much interest in attacking the Islamist allies of Western imperialism who rule Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies. I think it’s fair to say that your opposition to Islamism is tailored to the needs of Western imperialism and Zionism, and not to the needs of the workers and oppressed of the Arab and Muslim world.
Jim Denham said,
March 21, 2015 at 4:22 pm
Aarons: you’re a fucking idiot -and a proven anti-Semite – who needs a basic working class education in what class politics, internationalism and solidarity mean.
Steven Johnston said,
March 25, 2015 at 12:58 pm
The only -ism, that can help the workers of the World is socialism.
Nothing else is worth supporting.
Rilke said,
March 22, 2015 at 3:47 pm
Aarons and Jim. I would like to raise a question here in relation to this post and some others, that has been troubling me. It relates to the concepts of personal integrity, ethics and political categories.These in turn, relate to the category of crime or the criminal and the question of volition.
One of the most notorious convicted Canadian serial killers is a drug dealing, drug addicted, povery raised, low educated, socially excluded educationally subnormal person. Is he guilty of his crimes (of which there is absolutely no doubt, he claims himself, that he murdered women for sadistic pleasure) or is it the economic and social forces that are to blame?
Is this person to be put on the same level as say, a young person from a poor environment that joined the British Army at 16 and ended up in Northern Ireland? Are they both murderers or both guiltless?
Aaron’s argument is a curiosity to me, as I have said before. He seems to imply that the 16 year old is a criminal and not the serial killer. The logical outcome of his position is that the guilt or otherwise depends entirely on the political categories and that any ethical categories or questions are always either subject to the assumed political position (which can change of course) as such, or ethical categories can simply be ignored. But if this is the case, we have no real basis for saying that exploitation is ‘wrong’. Is it fine Aarons, for a poor person to steal from you and kill your family if they get in the way? If not, why not? Given your own logic, I could make a fair case that if that person happened to be a Muslim or an Arab, then there would be no basis, given the logic of your previous statements, for you to object to such acts as ‘criminal’. Presumably, if the person happened to be Jewish and/or from Israel, then according to Aarons, they would be certainly be ‘guilty’. I find this really odd.
Jim Denham said,
March 22, 2015 at 7:04 pm
Aarons’ position is one of moral relativism, in which certain individuals, (from certain ethic backgrounds) cannot be held accountable for their own actions. This is morally and politically unacceptable, incompatible with *any* serious theory of socialism, and – ultimately – racist, in that it infantilises certain ethnic groups, but not others.