More fighters from Tunisia are fighting abroad than from any other Arab state and citizens back home are becoming increasingly wary of their return, like reported by alaraby.co.uk

Around 1,000 protesters took to the streets of central Tunis on Sunday to protest against Tunisian nationals who have travelled to fight in countries including Syria, Iraq, and Libya, from returning home.

Tunisian officials say as many as 3,000 Tunisians have travelled abroad — more than from any other Arab state — to take up arms. The UN puts the figure higher, at 5,000.

Reverses in the fortunes of the Islamic State group in Libya where the extremist group recently lost control of Sirte and international operations against it in Syria and Iraq have raised concerns that many will seek to return to the country.

On Sunday chants of “No to returning terrorists!” and “All Tunisians against terrorism!” rung out from the assembled crowd.

Similar demonstrations took place in the Tunisian capital in December with President Beji Caid Essebsi offering little at the time to assuage concerns.

“Many of them want to return, and we can’t prevent a Tunisian from returning to his country,” said Essebsi, speaking at that time.

“But we will be vigilant.”

Prime Minister Youssef Chahed has since promised that all militants returning from foreign battlefields would be arrested and judged according to the country’s counter-terrorism law.

In recent weeks Tunisian authorities have arrested dozens of suspected jihadists in a series of ongoing security crackdowns following the identification of Tunisian national Anis Amri as the primary suspect in an attack last month at a Berlin Christmas market that left 12 people dead.

On Friday, in one development seen as cause for concern, Tunisian authorities announced the arrest of a state employee accused of passing information about security operations to extremist groups.

Since the toppling of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 Tunisia has been struggling to contain a burgeoning home-grown jihadist movement that has staged numerous attacks killing dozens of soldiers and police and civilians including more than 50 foreign tourists.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday a Palestinian truck driver who rammed a group of soldiers in Jerusalem, killing four and wounding 15 others, was likely a supporter of Islamic State, according to reuters.com.

“We know the identity of the attacker, according to all the signs he is a supporter of Islamic State. We have sealed off Jabel Mukabar, the neighbourhood from where he came, and we are carrying out other actions which I will not detail,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

The incident was the deadliest Palestinian attack in Jerusalem in months and targeted officer cadets who were disembarking from a bus that brought them to the Armon Hanatziv promenade.

The Libyan army announced on Sunday that it has killed an Egyptian militant affiliated with the IS group in the east of Libyan town Ajdabiya, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported, citing a Libyan army source.

According to the source, the Egyptian national, whose militant code name is Abu Rabie El-Muhajer, was killed while in hiding.

Libyan forces found jewellery and sums of foreign currency in the militant’s possession, whose real name was reported to be Mahmoud Kamel Sediek Robaie, Al-Ahram reported.

He was a member of the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries, an Islamist militant coalition in the eastern Libyan city, and in December 2013 received training at the camps of militant group Ansar Al-Sharia in Al-Qawarsha district on the outskirts of Benghazi.

In April 2015, Robaie joined the Islamic State group in Libya.

The militant was previously a member of Egyptian militant group Ansar Beit El-Maqdis and recruited some Egyptians to join the group, according to the Libyan military source.

The Sinai-based group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant organisation in November 2014 and changed its name to Wilayet Sinai (Sinai Province).

The group has claimed responsibility for most attacks against security personnel and facilities in North Sinai in the last four years, where Egyptian security forces have been battling an entrenched militant insurgency.

The investigating judge at the Judicial Counter-Terrorism Pole has issued arrest warrants against seven members of a terrorist cell composed of 10 individuals, said Sofiene Selliti, spokesman of the Pole.

These members are suspected of planning attacks during the New Year celebrations. They were considering targeting one of the major institutions as well as military security patrols, he said in a statement to TAP.

Among these members, terrorist Nasreddine Ben Dhiab and six other members were brought before the judicial counter-terrorism centre after being heard by El Gorjani’s anti-terrorist unit, Sliti added.

As for the rest (3 individuals) of the members forming this cell, they are still on the run, said the spokesman.

Sliti reminded that Ben Dhiab is the leader of this terrorist cell and supplies it with raw materials used in the manufacture of explosives. He was expelled from Italy for involvement in terrorist cases and handed over to the Tunisian authorities at the end of December 2016. Ben Dhiab, 23, had pledged allegiance to the terrorist organisation “Daech”.

At least nine Islamist terrorists were killed and 16 others injured as Egypt’s army foiled an attack on number of security checkpoints in North Sinai, military officials said to outlookindia.com .

The attack, which took place yesterday, targeted different army checkpoints at the same time. The attackers used cars carrying explosives, motorcycles and electronic weapons, military spokesperson colonel Tamer el-Refa’e said in a statement.

The armed forces exchanged fire with the attackers killing nine and injuring 16 others. They also destroyed six of their vehicles, he added.

North Sinai has been the stage for many terrorists attacks since the January 2011 revolution that toppled the ex-president Hosni Mubarak.

The attacks mainly targeting police and military increased after the ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by military following massive protests against his rule.

Over 700 security personnel have been reported killed since then.

The military has launched security campaigns in the area, arrested suspects and demolished houses that belong to terrorists, including those facilitating tunnels leading to the Gaza Strip.

Ismail Haniyeh, former Prime Minister of the Hamas government, is “in no hurry” to return to the Gaza Strip for fear that the Islamic State’s Sinai offshoot will try to assassinate him, a senior Hamas operative told Breitbart Jerusalem

According to the Hamas official, Haniyeh’s return to Gaza has been postponed for the second time in the last several weeks as tensions between Hamas and IS in the coastal enclave reached a boiling point following a major Hamas crackdown on IS-affiliated jihadists.

The source told Breitbart Jerusalem that Hamas received a concrete threat from Sinai-based Islamic State jihadists, who said they would assassinate Haniyeh should Hamas not accede to their demand to release their operatives and supporters arrested in recent months.

Haniyeh, who has been residing in Qatar for the last few months while preparing to succeed Khaled Meshaal at the helm of the Islamist movement, was supposed to return to Gaza in late November, but his arrival was pushed back for fear of assassination.

He was set to visit Egypt this week with fellow top Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook and travel from there to the neighboring Gaza Strip, but the plan was called off once more due to threats from IS jihadists.

Abu Marzook, deputy chief of the Hamas politburo, traveled to Egypt without Haniyeh to meet with senior intelligence officials and discuss further rapprochement between Hamas and Egypt after weeks of preliminary contacts, as well as ways to ease the burden of Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Speaking to Palestinian media, Abu Marzook confirmed that Haniyeh has called off his return to Gaza “for security reasons having to do with the situation in Sinai. The route from Egypt to Gaza is fraught with security challenges and we’re working together with Egypt to bring him back in the coming days.”

Abu Marzouk further added that his meetings with Egyptian government officials were devoted to the situation in Gaza as well as efforts to bring about a reconciliation between Hamas and the Fatah movement in the West Bank.

Fighting has toughened in the surrounding areas of Gweret Al-Mal in northern Sabha in Libya’s south between the Third Force, which is tasked to secure the south by the Government of National Accord,  and Brigade 12 Infantry led by Mohammed Ben Nayel, like reported by libyanexpress.com.

Ben Nayel is leading this war under the command of Khalifa Haftar’s Operation Dignity.

Jordan’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mahmoud Freihat, warned in an interview with the BBC in Arabic on Saturday that ISIS fighters on the Jordan-Syria-Israel border in the Golan Heights have anti-aircraft missiles, according to ynetnews.com.

“This faction is a constant and close threat to Jordan. Some of the areas its fighters are in are a kilometer away from the border,” Freihat said.

“They have tanks, armored vehicles, anti-aircraft missiles and machineguns that can hit the military posts on the frontline”.

A military source said to libyaprospect.com that the commanders of the three battling axes in the city of Sirte convened in Misrata and decided to keep the battalions of the eastern axis to secure the city.

They decided to send the battalions of the southern axis to the city of Sabha to support the Third Force that secures the southern Libya.

The source added that the commanders agreed to send western axis battalions to Tripoli and secure it. They cooperated with Operations Chamber of Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous called up the air forces to attack any suspicious movements or moving military convoys without prior coordination with the commander of the military region.