Two Tunisians Killed as Government Continues to Fight Al-Qaeda

In the aftermath of extreme upheaval across North Africa, due to the Arab Spring and Mali's bloody civil war that required foreign intervention to put down al-Qaeda linked terrorists, the mountainous regions are safe havens for the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorist organization.

As a result, North African governments have dedicated military personnel to fighting terrorists along their porous borders in an attempt to keep the militants at bay, especially in Tunis - where their newly elected Islamist leaders are fighting the AQIM to differentiate themselves from extremists and to gain foreign aid.

But the Tunisian military has paid the price over the past six weeks, as twenty soldiers have been killed or wounded by mine explosions blamed on militants and just yesterday two more were killed while patrolling the remote Doghra area near the Algerian border. Another soldier might lose his leg.

Sadly, due to the weakening of North African governments and the pipeline of weapons opened up to al-Qaeda, and other jihadists with the fall of Qaddafi's Libyan regime, patrolling the wild border regions will remain extremely difficult for local militaries, and their best option might be a cooperative force dedicated only to security along the dangerous Algerian-Tunisian-Libyan-Mailian borders.

What say you?