Around 700 Tunisian women have traveled to Syria to join terrorist groups, Minister for Women Samira Merai told parliament on Friday. Some 5,000 people from Tunisia, which is battling an insurgency at home, are thought to have joined the ranks of the Daesh group, and other groups, in Syria, Iraq and Libya. "We have noted a development in the phenomenon of terrorism," Merai said. "Today there are 700 (Tunisian) women in Syria and women in Tunisian prisons" on terrorism charges. She did not elaborate on what they were doing there, but said Prime Minister Habib Essid had called on several ministers "to present a battle plan against terrorism, each in his own area." Tunisia closes main airport to Libyan planes Tunisia announced Friday the closure of its main Tunis-Carthage international airport to Libyan planes as part of security measures since a suicide bombing in the capital. "We face a dangerous situation. We have taken a number of security measures," Transport Minister Mahmoud Ben Romdhane told Mosaique FM radio. He said that flights from war-wracked Libya would only be authorized to land in Sfax, 270 kilometers (165 miles) southeast of Tunis. Tunisair suspended its service to Libya in August, but Libyan carriers fly between the two North African neighbors. Tunisia on Nov. 25 closed its border with Libya, a hotbed of unrest, a day after a suicide bomb attack on a bus in Tunis claimed by Daesh. The Interior Ministry said the explosive used in the attack that killed 12 presidential guards was the same used to make suicide belts illegally brought from Libya and seized last year. On Friday, the Interior Ministry announced the arrest of two men it said were planning suicide attacks. The pair, who were not identified, "intended to carry out two suicide attacks, one on Habib Bourguiba Avenue," the principal thoroughfare in the capital. — Agencies
