north africa – Houghton STAR

On Wednesday, March 16, gunmen entered and open fired on The Bardo Museum in Tunisia killing 19 people and injuring at least 20 more.

The museum, according to CNN, is housed in a 19th century palace, and calls itself “a jewel of Tunisian heritage.” The museum hosts exhibits featuring art, culture and history, marble sculptures, furniture, jewels, and mosaics dating from the back to the Roman and Carthaginian era, including one of the widely known poet, Virgil.

According to Reuters, a London based news agency, the gunmen, dressed in military uniforms, stepped off of a bus and began open firing on tourists. Two of the gunmen then fled inside the museum with hostages.The two gunmen inside the building were later killed and are believed to be Tunisians, while the other three gunmen are still believed to be at large. Their identities, as well as their motives remain unclear.

Among the dead were five Japanese tourists and visitors from Poland, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as well as at least one Tunisian native, according to Reuters. In addition to the deaths, there were another 20 tourists and two Tunisians wounded in the attack.

While there is no solid evidence linking ISIS to the attack, many factors are forming suspicion of the influence of the Islamic State. The biggest factor causing suspicion, according to The New York Times, was the celebration of the attacks by ISIS supporters via social media which cited a video released by supporters in December that claimed there were ‘more attacks to come.’ Boubakr Hakim, a Tunisian militant, urged for the support of the Islamic state and claimed responsibility for the assassinations of two liberal Tunisian politicians and warned authorities, “You will not live in safety as long as Tunisia is not ruled by Islam.”

Another one of the largest indicators of the Islamic State’s involvement with the shooting is, according to New York Times, it’s emergence as one of the largest sources of foreign fighters joining ISIS. According to The International Centre for the Study of Radicalization in London, “Up to 3,000 Tunisians are believed to have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight as jihadists, more than any other country.” While the country has not experienced as much violence as other nations that were part of the Arab Spring, it has experienced its share of outbreaks and protests. The Arab Spring, which took place in Tunisia, sparked protests throughout North Africa and the Middle East and was a revolutionary wave of non-violent and violent demonstrations, protests, and civil wars that took place in the Arab world.

Despite Tunisia’s transition from dictatorship to dictatorship, it’s recent completion of presidential and parliamentary elections, and “ a peaceful handover of political power from one governing party to another,” authorities have struggled to handle periodic attacks by Islamic extremists. According to CNN, in February 2015, Tunisia’s Interior Ministry announced the arrests of about 100 alleged extremists, and “published a video allegedly showing that the group possessed a formula for making explosives and a photograph of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

An Egyptian court on Monday, February 1st 2015, sentenced 183 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death. The court proceedings were held over the killing of 11 police officers in the violence that had engulfed Egypt after the 2013 dismissal of the former Islamist president, President Mohammed Morsi.

The attack took place after Egyptian military forces cracked down on Islamist supporters of Morsi in July 2013. Egyptian security forces descended onto two pro-Morsi camps in July and August 2013, killing hundreds.

At the end of July and beginning of August 2013, hundreds of demonstrators were killed by Egyptian security forces. The Human Rights Watch said that this mass killing of protesters “probably amounts to crimes against humanity,” thus creating an international outcry that was quickly quieted by the Egyptian government.

The United Nations has called the trials “unprecedented.” Amnesty International’s Deputy Middle East and North Africa Program Director, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, said in a statement in response to Monday’s verdict. “The death sentences are yet another example of the bias of the Egyptian criminal justice system.”

Sahraoui further stated that “issuing mass death sentences whenever the case involves the killing of police officers now appears to be near-routine policy, regardless of facts and with no attempt to establish individual responsibility.”

The original trial saw 377 people sentenced to life in prison in absentia, while not present at the event being referred to. Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said it would be wrong to impose the capital punishment “when there are serious doubts hanging over the fairness of the trial which disregarded international law.”

The Egyptian court did not put 183 individuals to death lightly. The Egyptian government has been attempting to fight against terrorism in Egypt. Muslim extremism has seen an increase in central Egypt in the past decade, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been fighting against these extremists.

Egypt’s current government, led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has called for a ‘religious revolution’ and asked Muslim leaders to help in the fight against extremism. President el-Sisi has launched a war against terrorism, focusing particularly on the countries Sinai region, where an extremist group recently pledged allegiance to ISIS.

In an act of counter extremism, Egyptian authorities cracked down in 2013 on former supporters of Morsi, a longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian government had officially declared a terrorist organization in December 2013

In a speech on New Year’s Day, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a “religious revolution” in Islam that would displace violent jihad from the center of Muslim discourse. “Is it possible that 1.6 billion people should want to kill the rest of the world’s population, [which] is 7 billion people, so that they themselves may live?” President el-Sisi asked.

“We have to think hard about what we are facing,” President el-Sisi said. “It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire Islamic world to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing, and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible.”