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Tunisia Preps Security Forces as Jihadists Fighters Return From Syria

Tunisia Preps Security Forces as Jihadists Fighters Return From Syria

Written by Jack Khoury | From Haaretz

Some 400 Tunisian Islamist fighters have returned home from Syria, Tunisian Foreign Minister Mongi Hamdi said Monday. While it was not possible to arrest them, the minister said, local security forces are monitoring them closely since they received combat training abroad and subscribe to a radical ideology.

Hamdi made these statements during a meeting of defense establishment officials, who were discussing ways in which to cope with terrorist threats.

The fighters’ return from Syria to their countries of origin, whether these countries are Arab or European, has become an issue of concern to security agencies and intelligence communities in those countries. They fear that the returnees will establish sleeper cells in their homelands that could strike targets at short notice.

A Jordanian official told Haaretz this week that his country’s government, which is extremely worried about the implications of this phenomenon, is keeping close track of traffic on the Syrian border and even arresting suspected radicals trying to cross over either into Syria or in the opposite direction.

Read more at Haaretz