In brief: Top museum attack suspects killed

TUNIS, Tunisia – Tunisian security forces decimated the leadership of a Tunisian jihadi group linked to al-Qaida’s North African branch, including the man identified as the “operational chief” of the attack this month on the National Bardo Museum that killed 22 people, the interior minister said Sunday.

Najem Gharsalli said Khaled Ben Hamadi Chaieb, also known as Lokman Abou Sakhr, an Algerian, handled the operational end of the March 18 attack.

Two other Algerians were among nine people killed Saturday by security forces in Gafsa, near the Algerian border, the minister told reporters, saying the leadership of the Okba Ignou Nafaa Brigade, which has killed dozens of security forces, was decimated.

Gharsalli proclaimed the “beginning of the war against terrorism,” and revealed that Tunisia has acquired new equipment, “including drones.”

Syrians flee Idlib after city’s capture

BEIRUT – Syrians fled Idlib on Sunday, fearing government reprisals a day after opposition fighters and a powerful local al-Qaida affiliate captured the northwestern city, activists said.

Idlib, with a population of around 165,000 people, is the second provincial capital to fall to the opposition after Raqqa, which is now a stronghold of the Islamic State group. Its capture by several factions led by the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front underscores the growing power of extremist groups in Syria, who now control about half the country.

The Nusra Front and Syrian rebels have controlled the countryside and towns across Idlib province since 2012, but Assad’s forces had maintained their grip on Idlib city, near the border with Turkey, throughout the conflict.

Now that the city is in the hands of rebels, who stormed government buildings and tore down posters of Assad, many residents fear that troops will retaliate harshly.

Brotherhood leaders declared terrorists

CAIRO – Egypt’s top prosecutor on Sunday named 18 Muslim Brotherhood members, including the group’s leader and his deputy, as terrorists in the first implementation of an anti-terror law passed earlier this year.

In a statement, chief prosecutor Hisham Barakat said the decision follows a February court ruling that convicted Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie; his deputy Khairat el-Shater; the head of the group’s political party Saad el-Katatni and others of orchestrating violence in 2013 that killed 11 people and wounded over 90 outside their office.

The clashes were at the start of mass protests against President Mohammed Morsi, also a member of the group, and days before the military ousted him.

Badie, el-Shater and el-Katatni along with senior leaders Mohammed el-Beltagy, Essam el-Erian and nine others were sentenced to life in prison. Another four were sentenced to death. The sentences can be appealed.