Tunisia says drone expert killed by 'foreigners'

Hamas blames Israel for the death of Mohammed Al-Zoari, shot dead on Thursday

TUNIS — The Tunisian government on Sunday said that foreigners were behind the murder of a Tunisian engineer, after the Palestinian Islamist terror group Hamas said Israel was behind his death.

“The investigations concerning the assassination of Tunisian citizen Mohamed Al-Zoari and the latest findings have proven that foreign elements were involved,” the government said on its Facebook page.

It did not give further details, but said it was “determined to protect all Tunisian citizens and to pursue those guilty of carrying out assassination inside and outside” the country.

Zoari, a 49-year-old engineer, was killed at the wheel of his car outside his house in Tunisia’s second city, Sfax, on Thursday.

He was buried on Saturday.

Members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, take part in a ceremony, on December 18, 2016, in Gaza City, in the memory of one of their leaders, Mohamed Zoari , who was killed in Tunisia. (AFP PHOTO / MAHMUD HAMS)

Al-Qassam Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip, told AFP on Saturday Zoari was a drone expert and was killed by “Zionist treachery,” referring to Israel.

Israel has made no comment about the Hamas accusation.

The Tunisian deputy prosecutor general, Mourad Turki, has said that eight suspects have been arrested in connection with Zoari’s death and that all of them are Tunisian citizens.

Hamas said Zoari had been a member of its military wing for the past 10 years. It published a poster showing Zoari with an unmanned drone in what appeared to be a training session. The poster bore the logo of Hamas’s military wing and referred to Zoari as a commander.

Mohammed Al-Zoari, a Tunisian scientist with ties to Hamas killed near his home in the Tunisian city of Sfax on Thursday, December 15 2016. (Screen capture Channel 10)

Tunisian newspapers rushed Friday to blame Mossad for the killing.

An associate of Zoari, Karim Abed a-Salam, told Tunisia’s Channel 9 TV that Zoari had visited the Gaza Strip several times in recent years, entering through the tunnels that run under the Gaza-Egypt border. He said that Zoari served as a liaison between Hamas and the Iranian and Syrian governments. It was not immediately clear whether there was any truth to these claims.

The Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper reported Saturday that Zoari had also assisted Lebanese terror group Hezbollah in the development of drone technology.

The Mossad has been accused in the past of eliminating those who supply Palestinian and Lebanese terror groups with advanced technology, as well as having assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists.

In Dubai, in 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a key Hamas missile purchaser and importer, was assassinated in his hotel room in a killing widely attributed to Mossad.