Tunis, where the Arab Spring first blossomed, has been plunged into a wintery gloom by the Bardo museum massacre. In murdering 18 tourists along with three locals, the two terrorists struck at Tunisia's lifeblood tourist industry. In managing to penetrate such a high-security target - the Bardo is part of the complex that also houses the parliament - the attackers also demonstrated woeful shortcomings in the capital's highly visible security presence. Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi responded to the outrage by saying that his country was “in a war with terror”. He is not mistaken. One of the awkward realities is that Tunisia has provided the largest contingent to the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Some 3,000 Tunisian citizens are said to have joined the terror group.
By no means all of these people are recent recruits. During the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians went to fight in Afghanistan and joined up with Al-Qaeda. Both before and since the revolution, there has been low level terrorist activity, mostly centered along the porous border with Libya. This has been fueled by a mixture of smuggling and tribal rivalries.
The most serious attack until this week was in 2012 when Islamists attacked the US embassy in Tunis, protesting over an anti-Islam film. Four people died, three of them protestors, and some 50 people were injured.
The authorities have sought to clamp down. Extremist preachers have been ousted from their mosques. Islamist demonstrations have been banned. While political rallies were commonplace during the recent elections, they were all heavily policed. Diplomatic missions, not least the downtown embassy of France, the former colonial power, boast a strong permanent security presence. Barbed wire also surrounds the Ministry of Interior further down the capital's main drag, Avenue Bourguiba.
Plainclothes police in black leather jackets with radio aerials poking out of them mill around the main streets. On the face of it, Tunis is secure. Yet the Bardo attackers still managed to get through.
The authorities are saying that the terrorists meant to attack the adjacent parliament building where MPs were at that time debating anti-terrorism legislation. Though both men were dressed in some sort of uniform, they failed to get into the building, so instead headed off toward the museum, where they opened up on tourists just getting down from a bus. They then ran into the museum where their seized hostages. The rescue operation two hours later by special forces appears to have been a textbook exercise that resulted only in the death of the two terrorists.
Yet it has to be wondered if complacency and poor discipline were responsible for the attackers getting as far as they did.
The government is now scrambling to protect Tunisia's reputation as an outstanding tourist destination. Unfortunately, foreign ministries around the world are already issuing travel advisories which are counseling visitors to take extreme care. Travel companies with insurance considerations may react more strongly. Tourists who wish to cut short their visit are being flown home. It seems inevitable that, in the short term at least, bookings for the important summer holiday season are going to be cancelled. The Tunisian economy will suffer some damage.
Unfortunately, a further attack on a soft tourist target will produce a far grimmer picture and the terrorists know this.
