Tunisia Police Seize Arms, Explosives

Police in Tunisia have seized guns and explosives and arrested two men from the Salafist stronghold of Jendouba, a security source said on Saturday.

The men were detained in the Fernana area near the Algerian border after a check on the rented car they were driving, Shems FM radio reported, citing the security source. Another two men escaped.

Police seized automatic weapons, 13 taser guns and an unspecified amount of explosives and drugs, the source said, adding that an investigation has now begun.

Jendouba, considered to be a bastion of hardline Salafist Muslims, was the scene of clashes in June between residents and Islamist extremists who torched the local police station after several of their number were arrested.

In May 2011, two policemen were shot dead at nearby Rouhia in a firefight with militants believed to belong to al-Qaida.

In an interview published on Friday, President Moncef Marzouki expressed concern at arms trafficking in North Africa since the fall of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, a particular source of concern given the current strife in Mali.

Gadhafi's "regime accumulated weapons, and now some are in the hands not only of Islamists from Libya, but also from Algeria and Tunisia," Marzouki said in an interview with The World Today, edited by London-based think tank Chatham House.