Tunis Blast: A Game-changer?
November 25, 2015, 12:35 pm

The significance of yesterday’s blast in Tunis that left 15 people dead is that it marks it as the most dangerous for political stability in Tunis. This is without a doubt a game changer, for signaling a major shift in terrorist attacks in the North African country.

The Shift in Terrorist tactics

What the blast shows is that Tunisia is now earmarked as a ‘soft target’. It is not as yet clear what caused the blast. There is definitely a deliberate lack of information about the attack. If it turns out that the blast that targeted the presidential guard is the handy work of a suicide bomber, then this newly introduced device and terrorist attack not only shifts terrorist activity in the only Arab Spring democratizing state, but also escalates it.

Since the Paris attacks, Tunis, which is currently hosting a major international cultural event, the 26th edition of the Carthage Film Festival (Journées cinématographiques de Carthage — JCC), one of the oldest biannual cultural events in the Arab World and Africa launched in 1966 to celebrate filmi-making in the global South, the state has upgraded its alert level against possible terrorist attacks.

Three observations are in order:

The first is that the attack took place at a time of high alert against terrorist activity and even this has failed to prevent yesterday’s assault against the presidential guards, a powerful state symbol. This attests to vulnerability of the anti-terrorist security apparatus put in place. Clashes with the army in the mountainous areas, including those close to the Algerian border, are now more frequent.

The second is that the attack could have easily targeted the JCC whose films, workshops and other related activities are featuring continuously until November 28 in central Tunis’s main cinema theatres adjacent to the Bourguiba Boulevard. It would have disrupted the JCC in the same manner the Paris attacks sowed fear and confusion amongst the city’s population.

Policemen check passing cars near the explosion site in Tunis, Tunisia, on Nov. 24, 2015. At least 11 people were killed and 14 others wounded after a bus carrying presidential security guards exploded in downtown Tunis on Tuesday, the interior ministry said [Xinhua]

If the Paris attack may be labelled as ‘random’, the Tunis attack is so precise: the presidential guards who are the least involved in security activities in Tunisia are hit hard as their mini-bus was making its usual drop-offs and pickups in a perpendicular street – Mohamed V — to the famous Bourguiba Avenue. This is part of the precincts of the headquarters of government Ministries and other important city landmarks. Whether the message targets the president or the presidential guards – i.e. the entire security apparatus –, the response came swiftly as Beji Caid Essebsi imposed a 30-day state of emergency, including a nightly curfew.

The blast signals a change of tactic and is the first to involve a suicide bomber – yet to be confirmed. Both the March Bardo Museum and the June seaside resort hotel in Sousse, which killed close to 60 people, targeted the tourist industry.

Secrecy and the War against ISIL

The latest attack will add a small rock in the stone-wall of state secrecy that continues to hide the precise cause of the terrorist attack. Indeed, if a suicide bomber is involved, this is an escalation to against which the state may have little or no counter-measures. This would definitely worry the counter-terror security units especially in a country that has produced thousands of ‘jihadists’ active among ISIL possibly with many returnees who have honed their terrorist know-how in Syria and Iraq and Libya.

So far it seems that existing measures to clamp down on terrorists intent on wreaking bloody ­havoc on the country’s nascent democracy seem to meet with little or no success.

This is on top of the secret war which is now involving human intelligence-gathering activities involving undercover police and military spooks especially in border areas with Algeria and near Mount Chaambi where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Uqba Ibn Nafi brigade operate.

The emergency measures taken by Essebsi and his security team are aimed at preventing disruption to the JCC and further terror attacks that would potentially have dire consequences for the tourist industry and the cash-strapped economy, which cannot sustain a prolonged war against terror.