Tunisia working with UAE on terrorist threat from female jihadist returnees
None
TUNIS - The UAE, which angered Tunisia by banning Tunisian women from its passenger flights, has intelligence that female jihadists returning from Iraq or Syria might try to use Tunisian passports to stage terrorist attacks, a Tunisian government official said.
Tunisia had demanded the United Arab Emirates apologize for the travel ban—saying that the UAE had provided no explanation—and on Sunday it suspended the Dubai-based airline Emirates from operating at Tunis airport.
Since then, Saida Garrach, an advisor at the Tunisian presidency, told local radio Shems FM that the UAE had "serious information over the possibility of terrorist acts as part of returning fighters leaving Iraq and Syria," and that the two countries were now working together to address the threat.
"There are terrorist plots in several countries," Garrach said in an interview conducted on Monday and posted on the station's website.
"What concerns the United Arab Emirates is the possibility of terrorist acts committed by Tunisian women or by Tunisian passport holders," she said.
