Tunisia on edge as Libya's Hifter advances
Tunisian authorities remain tight-lipped on the tumult in neighboring Libya, even as escalating violence impacts the Tunisian border.
On May 5, Tunisian security services in Ben Guerdane, on the Libyan border, said they stopped a vehicle carrying a group of Libyans attempting to cross the border into Libya, seizing around 370,000 euros and $200,000 in the process.
On May 3, Tunisia’s Interior Ministry announced that “three of the most dangerous terrorists” from the Islamic State-linked Jund al-Khilafah, or Sons of the Caliphate, had been killed in Sidi Bouzid.
In late March it emerged that Tunisia had imprisoned Moncef Kartas, a UN expert on illegal Libyan weapons, in violation of international law, according to a letter signed by over 90 weapons experts and Libyan researchers, the Guardian reported.
These seemingly disconnected incidents offer some clues as to how escalating violence in Libya, where warlord Khalifa Hifter has laid siege to Tripoli, has affected Tunisia.
