03-Dec-17: Understanding Jordan's king and his "holistic" approach to terror

Yesterday in Jordan [Screen grab]

Regular readers know we pay more than the usual amount of attention to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It's where our daughter Malki's murderer lives free as a bird.

And even though

• she has boasted over and again for the cameras and the media of her central role in the 2001 bombing attack on the people inside Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria; and 
• she confessed in an Israeli court in 2003 to the calculated murder of 15 innocent victims, most of them children, and to having done this on behalf of the Islamist terror regime, Hamas, whose first-ever female terror agent she is reputed to be; and 
• the US government, the US Department of Justice and the FBI want her arrested and extradited to face Federal charges in a Washington court

Jordan's ruler King Abdullah II, aware of her celebrity status among his people, has stubbornly presided over a series of measures whose effect is to spit in the eye of the Americans, to deny the validity of the 1995 Jordan/US Extradition Treaty and to ensure one of his kingdom's - and the Arab world's - most admired females remains free to pursue her career of incitement to terrorism, Islamist values and the murder of Jewish children.

Nigeria's president and entourage hear from Jordan's
king on how Jordan has defeated terror [Image Source]

Jordan is currently hosting an event variously termed (depending on which media channels you consult) the Aqaba Retreat, the Aqaba Process or the Aqaba Meetings. (Aqaba is a resort town located at Jordan's southern-most tip, adjacent to the much smaller Israeli resort of Eilat.)

Jordan's semi-official English-language mouthpiece focused on who was there in an official-sounding report yesterday ["King meets with leaders, officials as Aqaba Meetings kick off: Gathering aimed as venue to bolster security, military cooperation in the fight against terrorism", Jordan Times, December 2, 2017]:

• "His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday met with the presidents of a number of African countries and representatives of nations participating in the two-day Aqaba Meetings to discuss the global efforts to fight terrorism and extremist ideologies, especially in West Africa..." 
• "The participants [include] senior officials from the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Cyprus, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Australia, India, Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Nigeria, Mauritania, Antigua and Barbuda, Mali, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Chad, and Burkina Faso, in addition to representatives of regional and international organisations..." 
• "His Majesty also held meetings with US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, Brazilian Minister of Defence Raul Jungmann, French Minister of State attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, UK Minister of State for the Armed Forces Mark Lancaster, and High Representative of the African Union Pierre Buyoya... On the sidelines of the Aqaba Meetings, King Abdullah met with President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari, President of Guinea Alpha Condé, President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou, and President of Mali Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, a Royal Court statement said."
• "The Aqaba Meetings were launched by the King to maintain international and regional coordination and cooperation in the fight against terrorism within a holistic approach, and to discuss security challenges in regions around the world that are dealing with terrorism hotspots, with the aim of identifying shortcomings and coordinating efforts to fight terrorism."
• "The meetings are part of His Majesty’s initiative to reach out to countries around the world and coordinate with them on this issue, since the anti-terrorism fight “must be a joint, international effort, based on close coordination and consultations, to counter the global threats of terrorism and extremism”, the statement said... 

A brief Associated Press report makes plain what we find so perplexing about this:

Jordan's state news agency says King Abdullah II is hosting a high-level conference on fighting terrorism and extremist ideologies, particularly in West Africa... The agency says the conference is the latest in a series launched by Jordan's monarch to reach out to other nations and help coordinate the fight against terrorism... Jordan's king is seen as a key Western partner in the battle against Islamic extremism. ["West Africa is focus of Jordan counter-terrorism conference", AP, December 1, 2017]

For us, the elephant in the room is Ahlam Tamimi. 

Source: Al Jazeera

Abdullah has treaty obligations to the US. His father signed a 1995 Extradition Treaty with the Clinton Administration in 1995 and in its wake several Jordanian terrorists and felons were shipped off to face the US justice system. Though his media, aided by compliant reporters and editors outside Jordan, put up a facade that makes it seem extraditing Tamimi to the US is somehow problematic, it's clear that it's Tamimi and the specific crimes to which she has confessed that are the problem. And the real story. 

Though no one in the mainstream media seems to have picked this up yet, there's a clear analysis of the legal mess into which Jordan has inserted itself while giving its native jihadist killer safe harbor. See "Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements" [Michelle Munneke JD of American University Washington College of Law, in National Security Law Brief, October 28, 2017]:

This analysis means the United States should not give up on attempting to extradite Al-Tamimi. If other countries place enough pressure on Jordan due to concerns of Al-Tamimi’s danger and susceptibility to planning another attack, Jordan may change its position. Al-Tamimi is above all else, a significant danger that Jordan should take seriously—if not for the world, for Jordan’s own citizens that live amongst Al-Tamimi.
Jordan should reconsider its position and permit extradition in the case of Al-Tamimi for the safety of Jordanians, and citizens of other nations that may be subject to another attack by Al-Tamimi. Thwarting extradition not only violates the principle of comity, but it also perpetuates the international danger presented by Al-Tamimi.

But for most people, this isn't about law but simply crime and punishment. Tamimi was sent by her Hamas masters in the summer of 2001 to kill Jews. Especially Jewish children. She succeeded by all of their perverted measures. And she's now free, extremely well-compensated, raising a family and a media celebrity.

She has never denied the facts. And she has been applauded - literally - time and again in her public appearances throughout Jordan as well as in her well-publicized VIP speaking visits/travels to such countries (listed alphabetically) as Algeria (December 2011), Kuwait (July 2012 and March 2014), Lebanon (April 2012 and January 2015), Qatar (April 2012, again December 2013), Tunisia (April 2012 and November 2015) and Yemen (April 2014). 

She hosted a popular weekly TV program called “نسيم الأحرار” [Transliteration: “Nassem al-Ahrar”] meaning “Breezes of the Free” between February 2012 until September 2016.  Devoted to Palestinian Arab prisoners and their families, it appears to have been designed to bolster their morale, act as a two-way conduit of information and to encourage more of the kind of the kind of acts that turned these terrorists into prisoners in the first place. Tamimi stopped being its presenter in September 2016 at about the time she was very briefly (for a single night) taken into custody by Jordanian authorities pursuant to an Interpol arrest order at the behest of the US Department of Justice.

Tamimi and her connections publicly thank Jordan's judiciary and
leaders for getting her off the hook with the FBI and the US
Department of Justice - though the pursuit continues [Source] 

Jordan is a family-run business that like so many other Arab polities presents itself as a nation-state and even as a constitutional democracy, which is a real stretch given the total domination exercised by the British-installed Hashemites that have run it since the 1920s. 

Thus it was no secret to Jordan's Royal Palace that Tamimi was recording a weekly tribute to terrorism-and-Islamism in an Amman studio (Amman, Jordan's capital, is where she lives). And that it was uploaded and broadcast around the world every week for years by the Hamas-owned Alquds satellite television network. Her appalling show was and still is rebroadcast by a multitude of Arabic and non-Arabic websites that stream all or some of the programming put out by Alquds. The king and his Hashemite Kingdom never had any problem with any of this. Their "principled opposition" to terror only stretches so far. 

In April 2017, an Australian TV journalist told us privately that Tamimi had been advised by the Jordanian authorities to lower her profile in the wake of a Jordanian Court of Cassation decision that Jordan's 1995 extradition treaty with the US was unconstitutional. In particular, he told us, the "Jordanian authorities have now banned her doing any media interviews". Our impression is she is taking the advice seriously for the time being. 

Before that, and for several years from her home base of Jordan, she appeared numerous times as the presenter on several Alquds TV specials - including a number of propaganda programs that went to air in the summer of 2014 as fighting raged between Hamas Gaza and the IDF. She may be the most influential and important female public figure in Hamas.

So what does the Royal Hashemite Palace and its central personage say to all this?

Nothing, at least not publicly. Nor can we expect them to respond for so long as he and they continue to be absurdly feted as central players in their "holistic" struggle to defeat the terrorists by the likes of the most senior politicians of the United States, the UK and Europe. 

Just so long as they're not Jordanian terrorists.

18-Apr-17: So what, in reality, is Marwan Barghouti?

Barghouti, convicted on multiple counts of murder by shooting,

is a candidate for the next Nobel Peace Prize [Image Source: Arab media]

There are serious efforts underway this week to re-engineer the public image of the convicted Palestinian Arab felon, Marwan Barghouti.

Based on disinformation, partial information and lots of spin, they are directed at concealing the facts of his crimes and imprisonment and putting some wind into the sails of this ambitious man's on/off political career.

Outrageously, the key thing to know about Barghouti, according to one of the world's most influential newspapers which yesterday provided him yesterday with an invaluable op ed platform ["Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons", New York Times, April 17, 2017] to megaphone his extreme views, is that

Source: New York Times

In the following 24 hours, the Times found itself in the midst of a storm of protest. We have little sympathy for how the NYT's public editor summed things up today.

A side issue: Barghouti's English is poor. Yet "his" op ed, datelined Hadarim Prison, is a slickly-written piece of eloquent self-promotion. We think there's a teensie-tiny possibility it was written by professional pubic relations people in his name. But then who pays attention to such trivia when the cause is just so compelling?

Barghouti has an interesting group of admirers who help his self-promotion process move forward. Here are just a few.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu, the South African church leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, regularly sings Barghouti's praises. On one view, this is exceedingly odd, given how the Nobel committee specifically noted Tutu's own "nonviolent path to liberation" in its citation. So then is Tutu unware of Barghouti's lethal criminality, as widely outlined in the media for anyone who cares to look (for instance Dr Emmanuel Navon's cogently argued "Desmond Tutu is Wrong about Marwan Barghouti")? No, it does not seem that he is unaware. Instead, like many at that extreme end of the political spectrum, he seems to feel criminality of Barghouti's kind just doesn't count. And to show he means it, he has lately been touting the deeply offensive notion that Barghouti ought to get the same rich prize that Tutu himself did ["Bishop Tutu Nominates Jailed Palestinian Leader Barghouti for Nobel Peace Prize", Michael Friedson, June 8, 2016].

Al Jazeera, referring to the noble hero of the South African struggle to defeat apartheaid, calls Barghouti "the Palestinian Mandela". So do the Ma'an News Agency and a commentator at The Guardian. On the other hand, Le Monde, in the course of an interview with Barghouti, calls the comparison "debatable".

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, an Argentine human rights activist who received the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize and is a leader of the non-violent Latin American Christian group Servicio Paz y Justicia, is another supporter of a Barghouti Nobel [May 2016 source]. So is the parliament of Tunisia [source]. And so are sixteen mayors of towns in France [source] including Valenton and Bergerac (unfortunately we don't know the names of the other metropolises).

A cluster of Belgians, all of them involved in their country's national politics, followed suit and wrote to the Nobel committee in May 2016, improbably calling Barghouti "a peace activist":

“Peace requires the freedom of Marwan Barghouti and of the political prisoners, and more generally the freedom of the Palestinian people living for decades under occupation.”

Thinking logically, we might have surmised that the Belgians meant to exclude homicidal thugs from the list of those to be freed because what possible basis can there be to label such felons "political prisoners"? But then they do seem serious about wanting Barghouti to go to Oslo. So evidently they - like Tutu - don't see a conflict between being (a) a convicted murderer and (b) a peace activist. Sort of like being both a cheese-burger addict and an activist for veganism.

But for those to whom facts and realities still mean something, here's a brief excursion through the contemporary reports that accompanied his journey into the Israeli penal system. To emphasize the point, we refer to news reports carried by Haaretz which is much closer to Tutu's views than to ours.

The capture:

Wiretapping revealed that Barghouti was hiding in a safe house. The commander of the army’s Ramallah Brigade... told Haaretz: “When the intelligence arrived that he was in a building in the heart of a Ramallah neighborhood... an armored brigade surrounded the site and the baton was passed to me. The Duvdevan unit was under my command. We understood that he was in the building. One of the soldiers saw him through the window, taking cover close to what looked to us, at least, like an old woman who was lying on a bed. We removed everyone from the building... ["Will Marwan Barghouti be the Palestinian Nelson Mandela?", Haaretz, July 5, 2016]

The conviction

The Tel Aviv District Court convicted former West Bank Tanzim commander Marwan Barghouti in the deaths of five people on Thursday. Barghouti was convicted of three terror attacks in which the five were murdered, as well as in another charge of attempted murder, membership in a terror organization and conspiring to commit a crime. However, the court acquitted him of 33 other murders with which he was charged, noting that there was no evidence that he was a full partner to those incidents...  The court ruled that Barghouti was directly responsible for a January 2002 terror attack on a gas station in Givat Zeev in which Israeli Yoela Chen was murdered. The attack, the judges said, was carried out at his direct order in revenge for the assassination of Raed Carmi. Barghouti had admitted his responsibility for this attack. The attack in which a Greek monk was murdered in Ma'aleh Adumim on June of 2001 was also carried out at the instruction of Barghouti, the judges said. The former Tanzim leader, the court ruled, also approved the March 2002 attack at Tel Aviv's Seafood Market restaurant in which three people were murdered, as well as a car bomb attack in Jerusalem... [He] was charged with leading dozens of terror operations against Israeli targets since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising, including suicide and shooting attacks that led to the death and injury of hundreds of Israeli citizens and Israel Defense Force soldiers. According to the charge sheet, Barghouti headed the Fatah, Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade terror groups in the West Bank and was subordinate to Arafat... The state prosecutor said Barghouti funded and planned terror attacks and is not the political activist he claimed to be... Barghouti's supporters in the European parliament were expected to show up for the ruling... ["Barghouti Convicted in Deaths of Five People", Haaretz, May 20, 2004]

Barghouti was sentenced by judges Sarah Sirota, Amiram Benyamini and Avraham Tal to five consecutive life terms plus an additional 40 years. The judges observed that

Barghouti used to receive reports of the attacks carried out by his associates only after they were completed. This was an effort to preserve his image as a political leader not involved in armed attacks against Israelis... [Haaretz, June 6, 2004] 

And some occasionally overlooked points, via JTA:

When Israeli authorities chose to put Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti on trial in a criminal court rather than a military court, prosecutors may have set the stage for an even bigger prize: Yasser Arafat. That possibility was given a boost last week with Barghouti’s conviction on five counts of murder, for Israelis killed in three separate shooting ambushes... The judges said Barghouti could be convicted only in cases where it was proven that he had prior knowledge of imminent terrorist attacks and that he approved the attacks... [He] was acquitted on 21 other counts of murder for lack of evidence. Both outcomes bolstered the argument for putting Palestinian terrorists on trial in regular Israeli courts rather than in military courts, where the standards of evidence are not as strict. Barghouti’s conviction shows that there is sufficient evidence to put terrorists behind bars using standard criminal procedures, and his acquittal on the other counts lends legitimacy to the argument that even Palestinian terrorists will get fair trials in Israel... ["Barghouti conviction could foretell Arafat trial", JTA, May 24, 2004]

Some additional overlooked dimensions:

• Marwan Barghouti publicly boasted of his role in igniting what many call the Second Intifada in 2000. We published his direct quotes (translated to English at the archived Wayback Machine]. This may come as a surprise to those who think of Ariel Sharon visiting the Temple Mount in September 2000 as being the real story. 
• He personally laid out $500 [source: the archived Wayback Machine quoting a November 30, 2004 Margot Dudkevitch report in the Jerusalem Post] for the making of the explosive-filled guitar case that was brought to, and exploded inside, Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria destroying it on August 9, 2001 and killing fifteen innocent people including our daughter Malki. The bombmaker was Abdullah Barghouti, Marwan's clansman.
• We sat through Marwan Barghouti's trial in a Tel Aviv court.
• When another clansman Bilal Barghouti, a senior Hamas operative, was on the run from the Israeli security forces because of his involvement in the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria (he was later convicted for his part), Marwan Barghouti sheltered him for a time in his home. Bilal Barghouti said for the record that, during his stay there, "he saw a number of weapons, and when he left the house Barghouti armed him with a gun for his use." [Source: CAMERA] Marwan Barghouti is an unindicted accessory after the fact to the Sbarro murders.
• And since we're mentioning the Barghouti clan, let the record show that Ahlam Tamimi, the Jordanian Hamas agent who boasts of taking the central role in the 2001 Sbarro massacre and who faces terrorism charges in Washington that were made public on March 14, 2017, is the daughter of a woman named Hasna al-Barghouti [Arabic source]

Leader and parliamentarian, battler for non-violence and peace, candidate for the world's most important reward for bringing peace to the world. And also a cold-blooded thug closely directing other thugs. A man happy to appear in public gripping a sub-machine gun as he claims credit for the blood-drenched Intifadeh years from 2000 onwards.

We don't think it's all that difficult to distinguish between Barghouti the plastic-coated fantasy and invention of parts of the media, and Barghouti the loathsome killer of innocents. 

In the end, it seems to come down - tragically - to whom and what you want to believe.

21-Jul-16: Lone wolf truck-ramming murderer transforms - yet again - into a far more lethal figure

The weapon in the Bastille Day massacre in Nice, France
[Image Source]

What we know, or were told we know, or thought or suspected we knew turns out - almost as we watch - to be very different. And what's different makes it much, much more threatening. (For background: "15-Jul-16: The terrorist vehicle-ramming murders in France: what the media see and won't see"] Above all, this was not, in any sense, an attack by a truck.

From Associated Press tonight:

The truck driver who killed 84 people on a Nice beachfront had accomplices and appears to have been plotting his attack for months, the Paris prosecutor said on Thursday. Prosecutor Francois Molins said five suspects currently in custody are facing preliminary terrorism charges for their alleged roles in helping 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel in the July 14 attack in the southern French city. Molins' office, which oversees terrorism investigations, opened a judicial inquiry Thursday into a battery of charges... The suspects are four men — two Franco-Tunisians, a Tunisian and an Albanian — and one woman of dual French-Albanian nationality, Molins said. The driver was a Tunisian man who had been living in Nice for several years. People close to Bouhlel said he had shown no signs of radicalization until very recently. But Molins said information from Bouhlel's phone showed searches and photos that suggested he could have been preparing an attack as far back as 2015.

Almost no aspect of what was suggested about the attacker in the hours and first days after the incredibly lethal assault by truck-ramming has remained in its original shape. This will not prevent the very same thing from happening next time there is a terrorist attack in which, as far as the naked eye can see, is done by an individual. He or she will be a lone wolf for media and government policy purposes until the facts make that theory impossible to sustain.

We, the civilized side, are not winning this ongoing war yet.

07-Sep-15: Putting numbers to the fears: terrorism is absolutely growing

From the September 2015 Terror Threat Snapshot

In June 2015, a freshly launched USA government publication called “Terror Threat Snapshot” caught our eye. It was going to be put out monthly by the US Congress' House Committee on Homeland Security. Now, we're not great believers in the readability of government reports, but this one made some interesting comments right off the bat. So we have stayed tuned, and read it when new issues emerge.

That first issue referred back to newspaper reports (like this one from International Business Times) that appeared in 2014 and indicated that terrorists in the service of ISIS were using sea-going smugglers to create refugee flows into Europe as a kind of "Trojan Horse", generating concerns about how terrorists might potentially exploit these flows.

So here we are in September 2015, thinking disturbing thoughts, particularly after viewing the video clips circulating in the social media the last few days - lots of men, many rough looking but hardly desperate; not so many women and children. (This one from Hungary, devoid of dialogue, captures the mood. And this one. And this.)

The House Homeland Security committee chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican representative from Texas, launched the latest Snapshot on Friday [press release], emphasizing that the threat from jihad in the U.S. was already high and has escalated dramatically during 2015. Here, in our words, are some of the larger talking points:

• More jihadist terror cases have been uncovered in 2015 than in any year since 9/11. 
• ISIS is fueling what the report calls "Islamist terror wildfire across the globe" at a speed that has no precedent. As of the end of August, ISIS had inspired or initiated 57 terror attack plots against Western targets, of which 15 were targeted at the United States. 
• ISIS has affiliates, groups pledging support or a direct presence in 18 countries including Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Pakistan, Philippines, the North Caucasus region of Russia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. It controls 12 cities and towns in Iraq and 13 more in Syria as of early September 2015.
• Activists working in the name of ISIS have released "hit lists" of American government personnel, including service members. Most Islamist terror plots on U.S. soil have, since the start of 2014, been based on killing police or U.S. service members.
• Cases involving homegrown jihadists/terrorists rose from 38 in July 2010 to 124 today, a rise of 300% in five years.
• On August 13, 2015, the ISIS "hacking division" released information on 1,400 American government personnel  and urged its followers to track them down and do harmful things. The released information included names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers. 
• How many Westerners have gone to fight in the Syria and Iraq Arab-on-Arab bloodbath? About 4,500 including 550 women, and including more than 250 Americans, including those who attempted to travel and failed. Some 40 American fighters who went to Syria had returned to the United States as of March 2015, and some have since been arrested on terror charges.

We don't have much time for people who say terrorism is a side-show, we're winning, it's drying up. The reality is it's getting worse on a global basis, with clear and identifiable focuses of activity and inspiration, and it's going to get much worse before our side prevails.

21-Jul-15: Devastating first-time experience of ISIS savagery stuns Turkey

A selfie taken seconds before the blast in Suruc, Turkey, yesterday

Turkey is reeling from a terror massacre and the looming impact this is likely to have on tourist travel to their tourism-dependent state. 

First the facts: AFP says 32 people were killed, more than 100 injured, yesterday (Monday) when a bomb ripped through a crowd of young socialist activists in a mainly Kurdish region of Turkey, in the town of Suruc (population about 57,000). 

They were members of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF), there to take part in "a rebuilding mission for Kobane, which Kurdish forces had retaken from IS earlier this year". They evidently intended to carry aid across the border into Syria. They were seated at tables having breakfast just before the explosion. 

Right across the social media today, there are photos and horrifying videos (easy to find online, but we will not link to them) of smiling, relaxed members of the target group, oblivious to the disaster about to befall them seconds later. 

Hurriyet Daily, a Turkish paper, is quoted by AFP today saying there had been warnings by Turkey's intelligence agency that seven IS members, among them 3 women (named in this Turkish report), had entered Turkey in recent weeks to carry out attacks. Hence numerous reports today saying the deaths were accomplished by what we think should be termed a human bomb. (That's still not confirmed.) One report says the human bomb was an 18 year old girl. 

ISIS already controls large swatches of Syria and Iraq up to the Turkish border, has not claimed 'credit' for the Suruc massacre.

Not so surprisingly, parts of the British media - Independent UK for instance ["Is it safe to travel in Turkey following suicide attack?", July 21, 2015] - are suggesting British tourists, already terrified by the idea of holidaying in Tunisia ["12-Jul-15: In confronting terror, Tunisia's government tells visitors to trust them and ignore the advisories"], are probably thinking twice before going to Turkey. 

But the information they provide is (in our eyes) surprisingly relaxed: 

"What does the Foreign Office say? All of Turkey is currently subject to varying levels of Foreign Office travel advice. They encourage all visitors to read their travel advice before travelling, wherever they are in the country - this reflects the fact there is a heightened risk of terrorism across the country than there is in other European countries. However, this warning does not mean they advise against travel... Referring to terrorism from ISIS and other, domestic militant groups, the Foreign Office says: "attacks could be indiscriminate and could affect places visited by foreigners."" 

Not much doubt which self-image the Turks prefer [Click to visit
theGoTurkey travel site from which this poster comes]

Understand now?

Scanning the Turkish media, we see that Today's Zaman, ["Already-beleaguered tourism sector in Turkey concerned about Suruç attack"] writes today about Turkish anxieties. A senior travel official 
is critical of the gruesome photographs of the terror victims plastered on the front pages of Turkish dailies:

"This will definitely affect tourism, but to what extent I cannot be sure. The publication of photographs by the media was not a good move. The world is very small and everything circulates quickly. I hope the effect won't be strong. This is a crisis that needs to be managed properly..." 

Our experience is that he's unfortunately got the right idea. Leaving aside the victims themselves - those who are dead or injured, and their families - the negative impact on non-victims tends to pass rapidly, as the events post 9/11, 7/7, M-3 and other huge terrorist atrocities have shown. 

12-Jul-15: In confronting terror, Tunisia's government tells visitors to trust them and ignore the advisories

Poster in Tunisian booth at a March 2011 international tourism show,
in Berlin [Image Source: "Tunisia sees tourists return 
after revolt" Reuters, 2012]

If there are tourists from the UK - or from anywhere - still intent on taking their holidays in Tunisia, there are a few things we feel they ought to know. Let's start with a British news report published on Friday:

Britain's advice that tourists should leave Tunisia because of the risk of another terror attack will "have repercussions", the country's prime minister has said. Habib Essid said he would telephone David Cameron on Friday to respond to Foreign Office advice that the North African nation was unsafe for holidays. Tunisia's ambassador to London has already warned Britain is playing into the hands for terrorists with the new threat warning, which is likely to devastate the Tunisian tourist industry. Mr Essid said: "We will ring the British prime minister to tell him we have done everything we can to protect all British interests and those of others countries - that's our duty."
"Britain is free to take whatever decision it likes - it's a sovereign country - but we too are a sovereign country and we have a position to take."
He did not elaborate on what that position might be but he told politicians that the British decision would "have repercussions." [Tunisia backlash against Britain as PM warns of terror 'repercussions' | The Independent UK | July 10, 2015]

Britain is not alone in issuing travel advisories:

"Tunisia's Prime Minister has said his country cannot defeat terrorism without foreign support. Habib Essid confirmed that the gunman who murdered 38 tourists on a beach in the resort of Sousse - including three Irish people and 30 British - did not act alone." [Irish Examiner, July 11, 2015]

and

The Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a travel advisory for Serbian citizens, warning them to "abstain from travel to Tunisia." [Tanjug, July 10, 2015]

and

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not upgraded its risk rating for New Zealanders in Tunisia after a terrorist attack near Sousse... An MFAT spokesperson said the ministry had updated its travel advisory in light of the attack but there were no changes in the analysed level of risk to travel there. The "significant threat" of terrorism in Tunisia meant there was still "some risk" for security, MFAT said... Further attacks could not be ruled out, particularly in large cities and popular tourist destinations, MFAT warned on its website. [New Zealand Herald, June 30, 2015]

On the other hand

According to the State Department website, the US has issued no specific warnings since the attack. On Saturday afternoon, a map on the website of the French foreign ministry ranked the terrorist threat in Tunisia below that in Libya, Algeria and parts of Egypt. A spokesman confirmed that France had not called on its nationals to leave Tunisia, reiterating advice that travellers should be “particularly vigilant”. [From an opinion piece in Independent UK, July 12, 2015]

Still, we think anyone with Tunisian plans ought to take a close look at some of the background, as viewed via the lens of some recent posts on this blog:

• "26-Jun-15: A month of disasters for the infidels on at least three continents and that's just today"
  Extract: In Tunisia, gunmen opened fire at a beach resort, killing at least 27 people, officials said. At least one of the attackers was killed by security forces...
• "03-May-15: Israel sees concrete signs of a terror threat in Tunisia while the government there says it's actually nothing"
  Extract: The Tunisian government on Saturday shrugged off a warning from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel had learned of "concrete threats" of terror attacks against Jewish or Israeli targets in the Arab country... A senior official in the Tunisian interior ministry told Agence France-Presse that no such threats existed. "We have nothing on that. There are no threats," the unnamed official said... And for the record, we don't plan to include Tunisia in any upcoming travel.
• "19-Mar-15: In Tunisia, terrorists target tourists... again" 
  Extract: A murderous attack by terrorists in broad daylight yesterday (Wednesday) left at least 19 people killed on the streets of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia... The new Tunisian prime minister, Habib Essid, who took office last month... urged "national unity", calling the massacre “the first operation of its kind ever to occur in Tunisia”. The first? That's true only if we ignore (and ignore is exactly what most parts of the news media are doing) the April 11, 2002 Djerba synagogue bombing in which terrorists operating on behalf of Al Qaeda deployed a human bomb and a truck full of explosives to attack people, most of them tourists, visiting a historically-significant (and exceptionally beautiful) Tunisian synagogue. The death toll was heavy: 14 German tourists, 3 Tunisians, 2 French.  

Beyond the bluster, the assurances and the threats, some Tunisians are dealing with the serious commercial fall-out from the collapse of their tourism industry via some in-your-face marketing:

According to an article in the Travel section of Telegraph UK ["Images of 7/7 bombings used to promote Tunisia tourism" | July 7, 2015],

The images are deliberately provocative, according to Selim Ben Hadj Yahia, managing director of Ramdam, an agency based in Tunis... The campaign – which was not endorsed by the Tunisian Ministry of Tourism – was not created for an agency client or for profit. Mr Hadj Yahia – whose work usually focuses on political crisis communications rather than tourism – said that his intention was rather to convey hope and willingness: “We are the only country in the region building a true democracy and we will succeed at whatever cost.”

There's no doubt that pride, hope, willingness are all great motivators. But Tunisia has serious Islamist terrorism problems on its hands. Underscoring this, a BBC report on Friday, quoting AP, said Tunisian forces had killed  an additional five "suspected Islamist militants" in what it called an ongoing operation. Another British source [Independent UK, July 11, 2015] calls them "suspected jihadists":

Security forces killed the men yesterday during a counter-terrorism operation near the town of El Ktar in Gafsa governate. The alleged extremists were reportedly found with four Kalashnikovs, the same weapon used by beach gunman Seifeddine Rezgui, a pistol, two grenades, several mobile phones, documents and a large sum of cash... [But] Philip Hammond, the [British] Foreign Secretary, appeared to criticise Tunisian counter-terrorism efforts in his statement... “While we are working with the Tunisian authorities to further strengthen those measures, we judge that more work is needed to effectively protect tourists from the terrorist threat.”

Tunisia's reluctance to be open about such matters is likely to tell very heavily in their efforts to stay in close touch with the civilized world and its travelers. As we keep saying here, being wrong about terrorism comes at a terribly high price.

28-Jun-15: Terror: now you see it, now you don't

The aftermath of the terrorist massacre in the Kuwaiti mosque [Image Source]

A killer, motivated by ideological passions, enters a house of worship and launches a frenzied attack that results in a great deal of spilled blood, numerous deaths of the faithful, and devastated families.

It's terrorism, right? Well, that depends on who's doing the editing.

Terror attacks in Kuwait, France and Tunisia echo Isis methods | The Guardian, June 26, 2015

Headline says it all.

Five Israelis killed in deadly attack on Jerusalem synagogue | The Guardian, November 18, 2014

The murders of unarmed Jewish worshipers are described as a "frenzied assault", the most lethal incident in the city (Jerusalem) in years. But the word 'terror' appears only when it's part of a direct quotation from comments made by two people: an eye-witness and the US Secretary of State.

Terrorist Attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait Kill Dozens | New York Times, June 26, 2015

Headline says it all

Israel Shaken by 5 Deaths in Synagogue Assault | New York Times, June 26, 2015

Terrorism not mentioned. The attackers are termed "assailants", the massacre is an "attack" and an "assault". The savagery is framed as part of "the rising religious dimension of the spate of violence, which has been attributed mainly to a struggle over the very site the victims were praying toward". Does the reporter see the victims as part of that "spate"? Were the men at prayer involved in a "struggle"? Are any Israelis to be considered outside that struggle? 

Fatal Friday: Scores dead after France, Tunisia & Kuwait hit by terrorist attacks | rt.com (Russia), June 26, 2015

Headline says it all

3 US & 1 UK rabbis killed, 7 injured in attack at Jerusalem synagogue | rt.com again, November 18, 2014

Two "assailants" attacked worshipers (knives, axes, pistol) in a Jerusalem synagogue. "Spokeswoman Luba Samri described the incident as a "terrorist attack."" But other than as part of a quote from the police, terror goes unmentioned... except in the URL of the article itself, which suggests someone with more brains than political correctness realized what the massacre in Jerusalem actually stood for, but was then editorially over-ruled.

Friday’s Three Terror Attacks Might Not Be Connected—and That’s Even Scarier | Time Magazine, June 26, 2015

"A bloody assault in Tunisia, a decapitation in France and a suicide bombing in Kuwait are part of the horrifying new normal of terrorism"

Fears of Religious Conflict After Synagogue Killings | Time Magazine, November 18, 2014

Ilene Prusher/Jerusalem @ileneprusher  Updated: Nov. 18, 2014 5:34 PM

Terrorism is never mentioned other than as part of someone's quoted words. "Tuesday’s attack in a crowded synagogue where worshippers has just begun their morning prayers is the most serious attack in recent weeks. Both Israelis and Palestinians noted the choice of target and the skyrocketing tensions over Jerusalem’s holy sites – the Temple Mount or Noble Sanctuary houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and has the Western Wall at its base. Many expressed concerns that this may be morphing into a religious war more than a struggle over land."

And finally for a sense of the rhetorical acrobatics that this issue brings out in people, a commentary published by Reuters last week in the wake of a massacre at a South Carolina house of worship:

Why the South Carolina shooting suspect should not be called a terrorist | Reuters - Masha Gessen, June 23, 2015

Was the massacre of nine people at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina an act of terrorism? Almost certainly, yes. Does this mean we should be calling the suspect... a terrorist, and prosecuting him as one? Probably not…

True to Reuters policy, its editors manage to tell the story of Friday's massacre in the Kuwait mosque as well as the November 2014 massacre in the Jerusalem synagogue with no mention of terror in either case. So does this mean we are closer to a solution? Are we better off this way? Is there anything we can learn from this? Stay tuned.

The aftermath of the terrorist massacre in the Jerusalem synagogue [Image Source]

26-Jun-15: A month of disasters for the infidels on at least three continents and that's just today

The Liquid Air plant in south-east France, the target of today's explosive
and barbaric attack by "suspected" "alleged" terrorists [Image Source]

For adherents of one of the world's great religions, it's a special time of year [see "22-Jun-15: Deconstructing the Ramadan stabbings and shootings"]. Here is a taste of the drama unfolding today, as reported just now by New York Times, in a story datelined rather oddly Beirut:

Terrorists attacked sites in France, Tunisia and Kuwait on Friday, leaving a bloody toll on three continents and prompting new concerns about the spreading influence of jihadists.
In France, attackers stormed an American-owned industrial chemical plant near Lyon, decapitated one person and tried unsuccessfully to blow up the factory, in what French authorities said was a terrorist attack.
In Tunisia, gunmen opened fire at a beach resort, killing at least 27 people, officials said. At least one of the attackers was killed by security forces.
And the Islamic State claimed responsibility for an explosion at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait City. Local news reports said at least eight people had been wounded.
There was no immediate indication that the attacks were coordinated. But the three strikes came at roughly the same time, and just days after the Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS or ISIL, called for such operations during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan... “It appears to be an effort to launch and inspire a wave of attacks across three continents, reminiscent of Al Qaeda’s simultaneous multiple attacks of the past,” said Bruce O Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who is a counterterrorism expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “The Kuwait operation is especially dangerous, as this is ISIS’ first operation in a gulf state,” Mr. Riedel said in an email. “The others will be deeply alarmed.”
...[T]he quick succession of the attacks raised the possibility that the Islamic State, which has seized control of territory in Iraq and Syria, has successfully inspired sympathizers to plan and carry out attacks in their own countries.
“Muslims, embark and hasten toward jihad,” said the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, in an audio message released this week. “O mujahedeen everywhere, rush and go to make Ramadan a month of disasters for the infidels.” [Source: "Terrorist Attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait Kill Dozens", Ben Hubbardine | New York Times | June 26, 2015]

The Tunisian shooters are still at large, says Sky News. whose editors manage to detail the facts as they are currently known without once mentioning the word "terror".

The Kuwaiti outrage - on a house of worship, and with at least 10 dead (something the NY Times people did not mention) - is reported by BBC News without once mentioning the word "terror", as well.

The beheading and attempted explosion at Liquid Air's plant in France, and the identification of the man arrested at the scene ["The suspect has been named as Yassin Salhi, 35" which leaves us wondering whether he's the racist thug of the same name in this 2012 news item] are reported by Independent UK without once mentioning the word "terror", or the word Islamic, Islamist, Moslem, Muslim or any other word connoting any religion, great or small.

Very well done, chaps. Does being non-judgmental in your precious manner mean we're winning this war?

UPDATE | December 23, 2015: Salhi, who beheaded a man and tried to blow up the Air Products plant, hanged himself in his French jail cell [Source]

22-May-15: Tough, crucial questions at Europe's borders

Nice Moroccan boy wanting to spend more time with immigrant mother
in Italy? Or murder-minded gunman with no problem shooting
dozens of tourists in the back? [Image Source]

Go back and take a look at our comments on the most recent random murder attack on people in Tunisia ["19-Mar-15: In Tunisia, terrorists target tourists... again"] and you can see that there were all manner of speculations about what triggered the terror attack on a busload of foreign tourists (from Italy, Japan, France, Spain, Colombia, Australia, Britain, Belgium, Poland and Russia) exiting a bus to visit a museum in Tunis. Two dozen victims lay dead, most of them shot in the back by two masked gunmen, before the shooters were done.

A key suspect has been arrested. Here's what's known today:

• He was arrested in Gaggiano, Italy, a few kilometers south of Milan. His mother and two siblings have lived there legally for "many years". It's a known tourist town.
• His name is Abdel Majid Touil. He's a Moroccan national, age 22. How much he actually appreciates tourism and tourists is now an open question.
• Italian police are saying he arrived in Italy on a so-called "migrant boat" loaded with 90 others, that set sale for Italy from somewhere in North Africa in February. Photographs of the freshly arrived migrants are above and below.
• How did a "migrant", desperate enough to sail across the Mediterranean to rejoin his mother and siblings (who have been residing in Italy for years at that point), manage to then leave Italy within a few weeks, go back to north Africa, take part in a shooting attack on unarmed people, killing nearly two dozen of them, then slip (march?, parachute?) back into Italy in time to be arrested there for terrorism and murder? The Wall Street Journal asked officials at Italy's Interior Ministry: they say they don't know. [Source: "Tunis Attack Suspect Arrested with Migrants", Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2015]
• AFP says Touil is wanted "for premeditated murder, kidnapping and terrorism" on an international warrant. The arrest was executed by Italy’s counter-terrorism DIGOS police.

Other people are probably asking larger questions, like: if there are boatloads of "migrants" arriving on Europe's shores and it turns out one or more of them has terror, murder and mayhem on his mind, what ought to be done? Who checks them? How cautious ought European society to be?

An Italian newspaper report from yesterday drills down on the outlook and attitudes of people living in Gaggiano ["a characterless series of streets, buildings, and link roads"], and their views of what has been going on in the "four-storey 1960s building of 16 apartments at 14 Via Pitagora... inhabited by pensioners and blue-collar workers" where the suspect lived. For neighbours:

judgment has already been passed. For them, the Moroccan is guilty, no doubt about it. What they remember about the Touil family is “€32,000 of unpaid condominium charges,” and rubbish, including nappies and sanitary towels, “thrown out of the window”. They had to call in a special cleaning firm, “not once, but twice”, to “deal with the pigsty on the top floor” inhabited by the family. Six people are crammed into a 60-m² apartment, with a living room, kitchenette, bedroom and bathroom: the mother, Fatima, the eldest son with his partner and daughter, one of Fatima’s two daughters, and lastly, Abdel Majid... In Via Pitagora, neighbours say that the Touil family are squatters, who broke down the door to take possession of their house...  [Corriere della Serra, May 21, 2015]

As for the suspect himself

Instead of going to the mosque, he spent his time in the local bars, such as Novella 73, frequented by pensioners, with whom he used to spend the evenings chatting. When he went further afield, it was only to attend Italian lessons in Trezzano sul Naviglio, which is where he was the week of the attack in Tunis; according to the school’s teachers and principal, Abdel Majid was in class. However, the youth had not been seen for the last two weeks. According to his mother, there was nothing strange in this, since “he had been ill.” Apart from Novella 73 and the school, Abdel Majid Touilin seems to have led a quiet life. His brother has a criminal record for drug pushing, but since becoming a father may have changed his ways. [Same Italian source]

And the plot?

Early in February, his father and sister, who lived with him in Morocco, near Casablanca, are reported to have taken him to the airport. On this first leg of his journey, Abdel Majid allegedly flew to Tunisia with a low-cost airline. In Tunis, he is thought to have stayed for three days in a hotel, and from there to have moved on to Libya, where he boarded a boat of migrants heading for Sicily, to be subsequently rescued on 15th or 16th February. He may be the victim of a terrible mistake by the Tunisian authorities, or perhaps has been confused with somebody else with the same name. Alternatively, Abdel Majid Touil may be a well-trained terrorist, who first of all deceived his own mother, or even “enlisted” her, getting her to cover for him and provide an alibi. It was in fact his mother who failed to report the disappearance of her son’s passport to the police until two months after the event. The idea of enrolling in an Italian course may also have been a bluff, aimed at showing his willingness to integrate. [Same Italian source]

There's more. According to the occasionally-reputable Daily Mail UK

Touil arrived in Porto Empedocle in Sicily on February 17 using the alias Abdullah after being rescued by Italian authorities on a migrant boat in the Mediterranean. But he received an expulsion order demanding he leave Italy within 15 days.

They publish these photos today leaving readers to wonder whether the face and attitude belong to a skillful traveling-shooting-murdering terrorist thug they call "ISIS fanatic" or just a well-meaning son wanting more time with his mother:

The suspect [Image Source]

 Little doubt they're pleased - but about what, exactly? [Image Source]

Not surprisingly, there are those focusing on the smirks and the triumphant V-for-Victory raised hands and trying to interpret the mindsets behind them. 

But there are larger and serious issues at work here. Should European authorities be driven by the notion that some unknown proportion of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs making their way into Europe by sea on open boats and avoiding conventional migration channels (like the 900 or so received on Wednesday) have terrorism on their minds?

Or should they be considered hard-luck cases looking for a better life until proven otherwise? 

Whatever they conclude, there's no room for doubting any more that Europe is in the cross-hairs of some highly ideological killers and planners. Getting this wrong is going to come at a very high price. The issues are anything but theoretical, even if arriving at the answers calls for some unpleasant checking, thinking and acting. Either way, there are concrete consequences.

03-May-15: Israel sees concrete signs of a terror threat in Tunisia while the government there says it's actually nothing

These Jewish visitors to Tunisia feature prominently in the Iranian
media report today (see below) that makes fun of Israel's warning about
a terrorist danger while actually confirming just how real the danger is
[Image Source: Iran's PressTV]

There are reports in today's news about Israeli warnings to travelers about the coming days, which include the joyous festival of Lag B'Omer, and focus on Tunisia in particular.

Just why this is, and why the reports are so little understood by parts of the foreign news media, are matters worth exploring. So is the somewhat bizarre way the Iranians, up to their eyebrows in supporting and funding terror against Jews, Israelis and a host of others around the world, deny the danger while confirming (wittingly or unintentionally) how real it is.

First, who issued the warning? Israel's National Security Council. It's part of the Prime Minister's Office, a government department located in Jerusalem on the same street as the Foreign Ministry with a comprehensive Hebrew website (here) and an English-language on-line presence (here) that is comically bad: hopelessly out-dated, expressed in fractured English, and containing virtually nothing useful.

The NSC is widely quoted in the news though the scope of its authority has been called "vague". The Prime Minister [according to Wikipedia]

is not obligated to accept its recommendations, unlike with those of the Attorney General, for example.

One of its three wings is called the Counter-Terrorism Bureau (the other two deal with security policy and with foreign policy). The CTB is said to have its headquarters inside the NSC center in Ramat Hasharon, in Tel Aviv's northern suburbs.

The CTB is making small headlines today, having issued a travel alert last night (Saturday night) warning Israelis to give Tunisia a miss

following "updated information" on terror plots, with an emphasis on the Lag Baomer holiday which takes place on Thursday. Tunisian Jews, and other Jews visiting the North African country, traditionally celebrate the Hilula festival of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Lag Baomer. The Counter-Terrorism Bureau said a Level 2 alert, meaning a concrete and high threat is in place, has been issued for the country, adding, "The recommendation is to avoid visiting Tunisia"... The Bureau issued a total of 27 travel alerts, in addition to six enemy states that Israelis are banned by law from visiting, and eight regions that are subject to a variety of advisories... [A]head of Lag Ba’omer... it named Tunisia as a country that could see additional attacks. [Jerusalem Post, today]

How surprising is that? Not very. Just six weeks ago, we reported here ["19-Mar-15: In Tunisia, terrorists target tourists... again"] on a

murderous attack by terrorists in broad daylight yesterday (Wednesday) [that] left at least 19 people killed on the streets of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia... The president of Tunisia says his country will now fight terrorism "without mercy", according to the BBC. 

We also took the opportunity to note how Tunisia's own government spokespeople, starting with its newly-elected prime minister Habib Essid, urged "national unity", calling the massacre "the first operation of its kind ever to occur in Tunisia". That sounded wrong to us:

The first? That's true only if we ignore (and ignore is exactly what most parts of the news media are doing) the April 11, 2002 Djerba synagogue bombing in which terrorists operating on behalf of Al Qaeda deployed a human bomb and a truck full of explosives to attack people, most of them tourists, visiting a historically-significant (and exceptionally beautiful) Tunisian synagogue. The death toll was heavy: 14 German tourists, 3 Tunisians, 2 French. [Source]

The Israeli government's travel advisory issued last night that
focuses on the dangers of visiting Tunisia specifically [Online here]

As we said, that was six weeks ago.

Today, in the wake of the Israeli travel advisory, the government in Tunis is back in insistent denial mode:

The Tunisian government on Saturday shrugged off a warning from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel had learned of "concrete threats" of terror attacks against Jewish or Israeli targets in the Arab country. "Information indicates that there are plans for terrorist attacks against Israelis or Jews in Tunisia," a statement from Netanyahu's office said, urging Jews not to visit Tunisia during the Lag BaOmer Jewish festival, which will be celebrated on May 7. A senior official in the Tunisian interior ministry told Agence France-Presse that no such threats existed. "We have nothing on that. There are no threats," the unnamed official said. Thousands of pilgrims visit the tombs of famous rabbis for Lag BaOmer, including on Tunisia's holiday island of Djerba, where one of the last Jewish communities in the Arab world still lives. Several thousand Jews from France and Israel make the trip to the island every year, where 19 people died in an attack on the ancient El Ghriba synagogue in 2002 blamed on Al-Qaeda. Tunisia has been trying to reassure foreign visitors they will be safe since 21 tourists were killed in a jihadist attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis in March. ["Tunisia rebuffs Netanyahu’s terror warning" | Al-Arabiya, today]

The joy of Lag B'Omer in the ancient Tunisian synagogue, Djerba 1960
[Image Source: The invaluable Israel Picture a Day website]

An AFP report today, referring to the synagogue on Djerba that has attracted Jewish tourists to Tunisia for generations, adds:

The Tunisian interior ministry official insisted the police and army were ready to ensure security. "All measures have been taken... to ensure the success of the pilgrimage to El Ghriba," the official said.

Now for anyone thinking Israel's approach seems contrived or excessively cautious, let's compare it with what the British government says in its online travel advisory for Tunisia this morning:

There is a high threat from terrorism, including kidnapping. A terrorist attack took place at the Bardo Museum in the centre of Tunis on 18 March. Twenty-one tourists were killed, including a British national. Tunisian security forces continue to carry out counter terrorist operations following this incident. Terrorists continue to threaten attacks in Tunisia and the Ministry of Interior has previously warned of threats to industrial and tourist sites. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners. You should be especially vigilant at this time and follow the advice of Tunisian security authorities and your tour operator. Terrorist attacks have increased in Tunisia since 2013. In October 2013, there were failed attacks at a hotel in Sousse and the Bourguiba Museum in Monastir. Since then, members of the Tunisian security forces have been targeted in terrorist-related incidents at various locations, mainly near border areas including in the Chaambi Mountains. There is considered to be a heightened threat of terrorist attack globally against UK interests and British nationals, from groups or individuals motivated by the conflict in Iraq and Syria. You should be vigilant at this time. Keep up to date with this travel advice, and follow the advice of the local authorities and your tour operator. [UK Travel Advisory | Tunisia | Updated to May 3, 2015]

Now for the Iranian view via a PressTV report from this morning:

In an apparent publicity campaign to portray Jews as victimized, the Israeli regime said earlier in the day that there were “concrete threats” of attacks against “Jewish and Israeli targets” in Tunisia. The office of Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Saturday statement, "Information indicates that there are plans for terrorist attacks against Israelis or Jews in Tunisia." The statement further claimed that the threats are connected to the Lag BaOmer Jewish festival in the country, urging “Jews” not to travel to Tunisia for the May 6 event... Meanwhile, the Israeli regime has issued a number of false claims of potential terror attacks against Israeli or Jewish targets around the globe aimed at showing that Jewish communities are under persisting and increased threats in order to encourage Jews to immigrate to occupied Palestinian territories... The people of Tunisia, the birthplace of pro-democracy protests across North Africa and the Middle East, revolted against the Western-backed dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. Despite the recent political stability, insurgency and terrorist activities still threaten the North African country. [Iran's PressTV today]

Clear now?

Let's hope (and pray) the Tunisians are right and that there are "no threats". And let's also hope that when they say "We have nothing on that", they actually mean

"We checked, we professionally reviewed all our sources, we set politics aside, we phoned the Israelis and asked them to tell us what they know about terrorism here in Tunisia and having given it our very best shot, we have concluded - as if lives depended on it - that the Israeli concern amounts to nothing."

For anyone interested in what the Israeli government actually said about Tunisia last night, it's online at this Hebrew-only page. Here's our unofficial translation:

Tunisia | High-level concrete threat | It emerges on the basis of updated information that there is an intention to carry out terror attacks (piguim) against Israeli and Jewish targets in Tunisia, with an emphasis on the Lag B'Omer events and those attending them. The Counter Terrorism Bureau recommends to refrain from visiting, and to leave the state (Tunisia) as quickly as possible.
The CTB clarifies that the foregoing travel advisory is a recommendation only and the decision to visit or stay in any place outside Israel is a matter for the personal discretion of every individual, and his/her exclusive responsibility, taking into account the significance of the travel advisory, other dangers apart from the dangers of terror, and awareness of the requirements of Israeli law.

And for the record, we don't plan to include Tunisia in any upcoming travel.