Germany to train Tunisian, Libyan forces to fight Daesh

Germany is to send troops to Tunisia to train the Tunisian army and possibly to train the Libyan army in its fight against Daesh, Bild am Sonntag reported yesterday.

According to AFP, the German newspaper said that, on Thursday, representatives of the foreign and defence ministries will be heading to Tunisia to study the possibility for German troops to take part in a training mission.

Bild am Sonntag added that this commitment could lead to setting up a training camp for Libyan soldiers in Tunisia with other partners.

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen told the newspaper that Daesh’s terror threatens all of North Africa, adding that it is very necessary to exert all possible efforts to support countries that are “struggling for democracy”, like Tunisia.

She added that setting up a training camp in Tunisia would help in achieving regional stability.

The German minister also said that in the event that Libya succeeds in forming a national unity government one day, its security forces would also be able to get training in Tunisia.

Both the defence and the foreign ministries declined to comment on these remarks.

The German army is currently involved in the international coalition led by the United States to fight Daesh, where they are responsible for arming and training Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, and carrying out reconnaissance flights over Syria.

But the country’s defence commissioner Hans-Peter Bartels warned in a report last month that the German military was overstretched and underfunded and had “reached the limit of its capacity for interventions,” AFP reported.