May 16, 2021
On May 18, 2021, Tunisia commemorates the 10th anniversary of the first terrorist attack after the 2011 revolution, which is The “Rouhiya events” that took place a few months after the fall of the Ben Ali’s regime. These events represented the actual start of a group of terrorist attacks during which dozens of security forces, soldiers and civilians were martyred.
What Happened?
The terrorist attack resulted in the martyrdom of Lieutenant Colonel Al-Taher Al-Ayari and Army Staff Sergeant Walid Al-Hajji, who was originally from the region, and who was spending a vacation with members of his family on the day of the incident, but he spontaneously joined to contribute to tracking down terrorists.
Army Corporal Sghaier Al-Mubarki was also seriously wounded, and hence, required to undergo surgery in Siliana Hospital, and also a citizen named Salah Zaghdoud was wounded by a bullet in the hand.
However, the security and military armed forces succeeded in neutralizing the two Tunisian terrorists, Sufyan bin Omar and Abdel-Wahhab Hamid.
According to the details, on the morning of May 18, 2011, at about 6:55 am, two people came to the taxi station in Ruhyia, Siliana, carrying two bags and inquiring about taxis heading towards Makthar. They insisted on sitting side by side and placing the two bags near them. Although the tour operator at the station insisted on placing the bags in the back of the taxi, they refused to travel and remained near the wall, which raised the suspicions of the tour operator at the station and prompted him to contact the security agents to inform them of the matter.
When the head of the police station came, one of them pulled a grenade that he had hidden in his pocket, and when he was unable to use it, they both pulled a Kalashnikov from the bag to secure their escape, leaving the second bag.
The army and security forces, reinforced by more than 100 gunners and two helicopters, moved to track down the terrorists who fled towards the rural area of Al-Arish, at the level of Al-Rouhiya Valley, about three kilometers from the city of Al-Rouhiya, where violent clashes took place that led to the killing of the terrorists, noting that one of them was carrying an explosive belt!
During the inspection, the officers found two fake passports whose validity had expired, containing two fake IDs, one of which is Basem Abdel-Ati, a 34-year-old Libyan from Derna, and entry and exit seals for Libya and Algeria, and in one of the bags they found a map of the Tunisian Republic that includes several symbols of tourist sites in Bizerte, Tabarka, Hammamet and Nabeul, which indicated that the terrorists might have been planning to strike the tourist sites.
Post-Rouhiyya…
In 2015, Tunisia developed what is known as the “National Strategy for Combating Terrorism”. In addition, the security and military units carried out pre-emptive operations targeting a number of leaders of terrorist organizations. As well, in cooperation with the Central Bank and the Financial Analysis Committee, Tunisia also enacted Law No. 26 of 2015 related to combating terrorism and money laundering, which helped surround the terrorist phenomenon and provided the legal ground for freezing a number of bank assets belonging to terrorists, or to suspects in terrorist attacks.
