International Business Times quotes Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Karim Mezran on the difficulties of securing the Tunisian-Libyan border and what that means for Tunisia’s fight against terror:
“They have been smuggling goods and trading illegally for decades. It will be very hard for the Tunisian government to secure the Libyan border,”said Karim Mezran, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.. “The Libyan problem has to be solved in Libya before you can seal the border with Tunisia. This makes Tunisia vulnerable no matter what.”
[…]
Tunisia can also count on more than one Western friend to assist: “France definitely because of its closeness with the Tunisian and Algerian regimes. Italians because the vast majority of its tourists go to Tunisia,” Mezran said. “The U.S. because of its international role and England because of its capacity in counterterrorism.”