Two Tunisian soldiers were slightly injured on Friday August 12 in an exchange of fire with suspected jihadists in a mountainous area in central Tunisia, AFP learned from the Ministry of Defense.
The clash occurred during an army operation in the Mont Salloum area, near Kasserine (center-west), a town near the border with Algeria, where there are jihadist maquis, according to local media.
“
There was an exchange of fire between soldiers and a group of terrorists in the Kasserine area
,” Mohamed Zekri, spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, told AFP.
According to him, “
there were injuries among the terrorists who fled
” and “
two soldiers suffered minor injuries
”.
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The last similar clash in Tunisia dates back to last March when suspected jihadists fired on gendarmes at the entrance to a national guard barracks in Kairouan, a large city located about 150 km east of Kasserine.
After the 2011 popular uprising in Tunisia, the country experienced a rise in jihadist groups which carried out several bloody attacks that killed dozens of tourists and security forces.
Tunisian authorities claim to have made significant progress in the fight against jihadists.
The last major attack carried out by jihadists against the security forces dates back to 2016 in Ben Guerdane (south-east) during which 13 members of the security forces and 7 civilians were killed, as well as 55 jihadists.