The Tunisian government has announced that it arrested nine nationals, including two military officers at the Bizerte base, for suspicion of planning to engage in acts of terrorism.

[Photos from copts.com]

News originally broke that the terrorists, Islamic extremists, had planned to attack U.S. military officers engaging in joint American-Tunisian military exercises.

But the government has stated that that was not the case. Not only were foreigners not the stated target of terrorism, but the men are not being charged with terrorism because no such plot existed. There was nothing on paper.

Instead the Tunisian authorities arrested and are charging the men with intent since the men were found seeking to steal explosives from the Bizerte base.

Tunisian authorities state that the men intended to attack local persons and property, not foreign targets.

Such another uncovered terrorist cell is a worrying sign of the rise of terrorism in this otherwise peaceful and stable nation.

Many of this groups have ties to al-Qaeda through its North African branch. This is a great worry, I have a lot of family in Tunisia. But I blame the United States for the spike in terrorist recruits.

America’s war in Iraq and the images of dead Iraqis on Arab television nightly radicalized many otherwise decent young men and made them vulnerable to the opportunist rhetoric of a thug like Bin Ladin. The war in Iraq, fought under the banner of the War on Terror, has created more terrorists than anything else. This is right before us in Tunisia and elsewhere.

I pray that Tunisian and all people will not pay for the crimes of George Bush.