The Interior Ministry disclosed that the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al Sharia is planning to assassinate 19 prominent Tunisians, including National Constituent Assembly Speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar and Republican Party Secretary-General Maya Jribi. Officials stated that the group is a terrorist organization connected to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the “Okba Ibn Nafaa” terrorist group operating in Mount Chaambi, near the Algerian border. The government announced plans to create “buffer zones” along the Libyan and Algerian borders to protect against “terrorism.”
