AFP/Tunis

The Moroccan arrested in Italy on suspicion of involvement in the Islamist militant attack on Tunisia’s Bardo Museum provided the weapons, a Tunisian official told Reuters yesterday.
Italian police said on Wednesday they had arrested Abdelmajid Touil, aged 22, in connection with the March 18 attack in Tunis in which 21 tourists were shot dead.
“(He) is a weapons smuggler ... he brought weapons for the Bardo Museum attackers from Libya to Tunisia before the date of the attack,” said the official, who asked not to be named.
Touil reached Italy on a migrant boat in February, police in Milan said, fuelling fears that Islamic militants could be among migrants crossing the Mediterranean by boat to Europe.
They said when announcing his arrest that Tunisian authorities believed he had been involved in both planning and carrying out the March attack.
However a source close to the Italian investigation told Reuters yesterday that investigators were “99% sure” Touil was in Italy during the attack.
The source said Tunisian authorities had not yet supplied Italy with details about what Touil was suspected of doing or when, despite having issued an arrest warrant.
The detained man’s mother, Fatima Touil, who lives in the apartment outside Milan where he was staying at the time of his arrest, also said he was in Italy when the killings took place.
“He doesn’t have any ties with any terrorists,” she was quoted as saying in an interview by the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
The judicial source said suspicion had been raised about Touil’s movements because he had arrived in Italy on a migrant boat, despite his mother’s resident status in Italy which would have allowed him to enter the country officially.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told parliament on Thursday that Italy was uncertain about his movements after being rescued from the boat.
Tunisia has said it has arrested the great majority of those responsible for the attack, which it says was a cell of 23 militants with overlapping allegiances to a number of hardline Islamist groups.

Obama to designate Tunisia as major non-Nato ally
US President Barack Obama said yesterday that he plans to designate Tunisia as a major non-Nato ally of the US, recognizing the country’s democratic progress after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
After a meeting with Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi in the Oval Office, where the leaders discussed instability in neighbouring Libya and the region, Obama said the US will provide short-term aid so Tunisia can complete economic reforms.
“At this critical time in world history, we think it’s very important for us to continue to expand the economic assistance that we’re providing so that ordinary Tunisians can feel the concrete benefits of a change to a more open and competitive economy,” Obama told reporters.
The White House said the US would offer up to $500mn in loan guarantees to the north African nation if needed for economic reforms.
“I committed that as Tunisia continues to embark on important structural reforms to the economy, that we will not only provide short-term aid, but also try to provide the kind of bridge and support that’s necessary to complete those reforms,” Obama said.
Essebsi told reporters that his country has “a long way ahead of us” to completely transform its political system and economy and needed support from the US.
“The democratic process is always vulnerable and threatened by terrorists, by parties that do not believe in democracy,” Essebsi said, speaking through a translator.

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