Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki (centre) after he was driven away by angry members of the security forces during a memorial ceremony at the military barracks in L'Aouina yesterday.
TUNIS: Protesting security forces drove Tunisia’s top leaders from a memorial ceremony yesterday for two policemen killed by militants, in a sign of growing frustration over the costly fight against jihadists.
President Moncef Marzouki, Prime Minister Ali Larayedh and parliamentary speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar were confronted by members of the security forces, some in uniform, shouting “Get out!” during the official ceremony at a military barracks in the Tunis suburbs.
“We won’t accept the presence of politicians,” shouted one of the protesters, as many of the demonstrators carried placards demanding laws to protect the police.
The Tunisian leaders, who had been waiting in an office at the barracks, left after about 20 minutes of jeers from the crowd, without attending the ceremony.
The commander of the National Guard, Mounir Ksiksi, condemned the behaviour of his men and vowed that the offenders would be prosecuted.
“We understand that the agents are affected by the loss of their colleagues... But we do not accept such behaviour, taking action against the country’s leaders,” he told private radio station Mosaique FM.
With the departure of the three top officials, only Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou remained for the memorial service.
The two policemen were killed on Thursday by an armed group in the Beja region, 70km west of Tunis.
The interior ministry said earlier that during a military offensive the security forces had killed several members of the group suspected of carrying out Thursday’s attack, which also left one policeman wounded.
Security force unions have organised several demonstrations in recent months to condemn the lack of resources for combatting Tunisia’s jihadists, who have carried out a string of attacks since the 2011 revolution, the first of the Arab Spring.
But this is the first time police representatives have directly blamed the country’s top leaders, who normally attend memorial ceremonies for police and soldiers killed in combat.
In a separate incident in December, Marzouki and Ben Jaafar were forced to flee a ceremony in the poor central town of Sidi Bouzid to mark the two year anniversary of the revolution that erupted there.
On that occasion, protesters disappointed with the government’s failure to improve living conditions heckled them and pelted them with stones.
Since December, security forces have been tracking a group of militants allegedly linked to Al Qaeda in the Chaambi mountain region along the Algerian border, with some 15 soldiers and police killed in the operations.
Despite air strikes and a major military offensive launched in July, the militants remain active, with clashes reported as recently as last weekend.
The two policemen killed on Thursday were trying to verify the presence of an armed group sheltering in Beja, about 160km north of the Chaambi region.
The defence ministry has admitted lacking the resources needed to confront the jihadist threat, notably equipment to clear the mountainous border region of mines placed by the jihadists, which have proved highly effective against the security forces. AFP
