Tunisia Reports Capture of Muslim Fundamentalists Plotting Sabotage

Security forces have captured two groups of Muslim fundamentalists plotting acts of sabotage and seized explosives, a homemade bomb, guns and ammunition, the official TAP news agency said Saturday.

The first group planned to use explosives stolen from a quarry in Hammam-Lif, on the southeastern outskirts of Tunis, TAP said. Some of the explosives were hidden in a lake.

The second group was arrested in eastern Tunisia, about 15 miles south of President Habib Bourguiba’s summer palace in Monastir. A homemade bomb was found hidden in a bank of cactus plants, TAP said.

Hunting rifles without legal permits, ammunition, explosives, Molotov cocktails and “subversive” publications inspired by the ideology of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were also found in the Zeramdine and Jammel area.

All those arrested admitted they planned acts of sabotage, TAP said, without giving details of the number arrested or when police made the arrests.

In the first official report of attempts by what the government says is a pro-Khomeini network to provoke unrest outside the Tunis area, TAP said members of the network had tried recently to cause trouble in the southeastern port of Gabes. It gave no details.