SUMMARY
The territorial conflict between the Government of Tunisia and IS is closely linked to Libya. Tunisia, unlike its neighboring countries of Algeria and Libya, was relatively successful in preventing large-scale manifestations of Islamic extremism within the country in spite of small insurgencies occurring within limited areas. Subsequently, the emergence of IS – a Salafi jihadist militant group with its origins in Iraq – in Tunisia resulted from their expansion of operations from the Tripolitania region of Libya (see Government of Libya – IS).
During 2015, IS carried out two prominent attacks on the Bardo National Museum, Tunis and at a holiday resort in Sousse. Reports indicated that the Tunisian militants that carried out both these attacks had been in contact or trained in camps in Libya previously. IS training camps were located in several cities along the Tunisia-Libya border and the base of IS operations targeting Tunisia functioning from Sabratha, Libya. In addition, confessions from IS fighters detained within Tunisia on 24 March 2015 exposed a strategic plan to capture territory and establish an emirate in southwest Tunisia. Despite this, activity between Government of Tunisia – IS did not reach the minimum threshold of 25 battle-related deaths to become active within the UCDP database until 2016, when IS troops attempted to capture the border town of Ben Guerdane. This attack resulted in two days of clashes between IS and Tunisian government forces in early March. The following year, violence levels returned to below the minimum threshold to be active.
IN DEPTH
Background and onset of the conflict
In November 2014, the presence of IS was confirmed in Libya with three wilayats issued covering its three historical provinces: Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan. Four months earlier, IS had declared that it considered the legality of those states to which its troops arrived at to be null. Therefore, when IS members began preparing and launching attacks in Tunisia from the north western province of Tripolitania in Libya, this is interpreted as the arrival of IS troops in Tunisia and the beginning of conflict between Government of Tunisia – IS.
In response to the threat of IS, the Government of Tunisia increased its counterterrorism operations and focused on strengthening its border security infrastructure. Several countries contributed secondary non-warring support towards this such as the United Kingdom, which sent military personnel to train Tunisian border forces whilst the US and France provided support for the installation of electronic border equipment. Consequently, activity between Government of Tunisia – IS returned to below the minimum UCDP threshold and was not active in the data for 2017.
