Tunisia dismantles cell recruiting women for jihadists

Tunisia said on Monday it has dismantled a cell in the northern region of Bizerte recruiting women to marry jihadists fighting abroad and has made four arrests.

The interior ministry said in a statement that anti-terrorist units led the operation to bust the "takfiri" radical Sunni Muslim network, without saying when the arrests took place.

The suspects had been "recruiting young people, especially girls, to send them to conflict zones for marriage to terrorist elements there", it said.

Tunisian authorities have stepped up arrests since a November 24 bomb attack on a bus in Tunis claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group killed 12 presidential guards.

An estimated 6,000 Tunisians have travelled to Syria, Iraq and Libya to join jihadist organisations. Tunisia's minister for women's affairs, Samira Merai, has said that number includes around 700 women.