Time for Tunisia to be tough on extremists

BERLIN — “Are there still Jews in Germany?” ”Are the Jews a chosen people?“ Nearly 70 years after the Holocaust, there is no more sensitive an issue in German life as the role of Jews. With fewer than 200,000 Jews among Germany’s 82 million people, few Germans born after World War II know any Jews or much about them.

TUNIS, Tunisia — The Islamist party dominating Tunisia’s ruling coalition on Thursday rejected its own prime minister’s decision to replace the government to try to appease critics, signaling that the political crisis brought on by the assassination of a prominent leftist politician is far from over. A few dozen protesters also tried to demonstrate in front of the Interior Ministry but were driven off by tear gas, avoiding an apparent attempt to reprise the riots that convulsed the heart of the capital Wednesday.

Canadian domestic extremists are capable of orchestrating “serious acts” of political violence, according to a newly released federal intelligence report that blames such groups for nine bombings since 2004. The incidents catalogued in the “secret” report include attacks on Alberta oil pipelines and three bombings by a Quebec group called the Initiative de Résistance Internationaliste (IRI) that espouses a broad leftist agenda.

ALGIERS, Algeria — Islamist militants from Mali attacked a natural gas field partly operated by BP in southern Algeria early Wednesday, killing a security guard, according to local media, and kidnapping at least eight foreigners, an Algerian official said. Seven others were wounded in the attack, including two foreigners, added the state news agency. Ireland has announced that one of the hostages is Irish.

BAMAKO, Mali — Radical Islamists have fled a key Malian town on foot following French airstrikes that began after they seized Diabaly nearly one week ago, the Malian military and fleeing residents said late Saturday. Malian military spokesman Capt. Modibo Traore said Saturday evening that soldiers had secured the town. The departure of the Islamists from Diabaly marks a success for the French-led military intervention that began Jan. 11 to oust the Islamists from northern and central Mali.

Security forces in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula have arrested at least 20 Islamists suspected of extremist ideology, as Israel warned citizens of a possible kidnap plot, a security official said on Friday."Between 20 and 25 Islamists were arrested this week in towns across the Sinai," the official said, adding: "They are believed to adhere to extremist ideology."The official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the detainees were being questioned, while witnesses said the authorities seized computers and books during the arrests.

SEVARE, Mali — Islamist extremists torched a library containing historic manuscripts in Timbuktu, the mayor said Monday, as French and Malian forces closed in on Mali’s fabled desert city. Ousmane Halle said he heard about the burnings early Monday. “It’s truly alarming that this has happened,” he told The Associated Press by telephone from Mali’s capital, Bamako, on Monday. “They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people.”

Alan de Bromhead, Barry Eichengreen, Kevin H O’Rourke, 27 February 2012The enduring Global Crisis is giving rise to fears that economic hard times will feed political extremism, as it did in the 1930s. This column suggests that the danger of political polarisation and extremism is greatest in countries with relatively recent histories of democracy, with existing right-wing extremist parties, and with electoral systems that create low hurdles to parliamentary representation of new parties.