Resort attacker trained in Libyan camp, official says
Beach assault Friday killed 38 tourists in Tunisia
TUNIS, Tunisia — The student who massacred tourists in a Tunisian seaside resort trained in a jihadi camp in Libya at the same time as the two men who attacked a leading museum in March, a top security official said Tuesday, enforcing the notion of a link between the two assaults and raising fears of more attacks from an underground world clawing at this North African nation’s budding democracy.
Investigators were searching nationwide for accomplices in the attack that killed 38 tourists and questioning a handful recently detained.
“It has been confirmed that the attacker trained in Libya with weapons at the same period as the Bardo attackers,” said Rafik Chelli, the secretary of state for the Interior Ministry. “He crossed the borders secretly.”
Chelli said Seifeddine Rezgui, a 24-year-old who obtained a master’s degree in electrical engineering, left his studies at Kairouan University and sneaked into the western Libyan town of Sabratha in January — when the two young men who carried out the museum attack in Tunis were there.
Sabratha, the site of Roman ruins, is one of several places in chaotic Libya where radical groups have training camps. The Islamic State, which has a strong Libyan presence, claimed responsibility for the beach resort attack.
There has been no previous indication that Rezgui had left Tunisia.
Rezgui has been portrayed as a good student. He received his one-year master’s degree, at one point liked break dancing and even getting a certificate, and practicing Kung Fu, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified.
A fellow student in Kairouan, Saidi Fedi, 25, described him as a member of the student branch of Ansar al Sharia, an Islamist group,
“Seif participated in the meetings ... on a lower level. He was not one of the leaders,” Feidi said in an interview, referring to the university’s Islamic Youth group.
“He was the least radical of the group in which he was active. He was one who took part in the debates, and he accepted different views. He didn’t argue aggressively,” Feidi said. “He didn’t answer with anger” when debating with students who supported the Syrian government. “He didn’t do anything that could give us a clue.”
The head of post-graduate Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology, attended by the attacker expressed equal shock.
“We informed the police so they could be sure of his identity and personal data,” said Karim Ben Elgharat. “We didn’t see anything strange about him. He was a good and assiduous student.”
The invisibility of the attacker, like those who carried out the Bardo attack, is for Tunisia and elsewhere, the biggest challenge in preventing terrorism.
The spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Mohamed Ali Aroui, said it was not immediately clear whether Rezgui trained in the same group as the Bardo attackers or whether they were linked to the Islamic State organization.
But the presence of radical groups in Libya increases the threat level to its Tunisian neighbor, as does the approaching end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and its “night of destiny,” which falls in midJ-uly this year.
It is a night that holds risks, said the person with knowledge of the investigation.