Tunisia will build a two-metre-high security fence along part of its border with Libya to counter the threat from jihadist militants, prime minister Habib Essid told state television on Wednesday.
The wall will stretch 160 kilometres from inland from the coast, extending along about a third of Tunisia’s 460-kilometre border with its eastern neighbour, Essid said.
The Tunisian army will build the wall, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2015 and will have surveillance centres at certain points along it, he said.
The Tunisian army will build the wall, which would have surveillance centres at certain points along the fence, said Essid.
The gunman, who shot dead 38 tourists at the Tunisian beach resort of Sousse on 26 June, Seifeddine Rezgui, is believed to have received training from jihadists in neighbouring Libya.
The collapse of security Libya had made it a haven for Tunisian jihadists with sleeper cells infiltrating back across the border, according to security experts.
Addressing the national parliament on Wednesday, Essid said Tunisia declared a state of emergency last weekend because terrorist groups were plotting more attacks in the country.
“Criminal and terrorist groups are plotting other attacks in Tunisia to kill, sap the morale of Tunisians and paralyse the economy,” he said, cited by the Tap state news agency.
Tunisia tightened security and deployed more than 1,400 armed officers at hotels and beaches following the Sousse attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State militant group
Over the past year, IS is said to have set up bases in the east and west of Libya. The group claimed a gun attack at the renowned Bardo museum in Tunis on 18 March that killed 21 tourists and a policeman.
