From worse to better

I just got in from the road block and I'm happy to report almost no shooting tonight.


The former police/terrorists have been switching up tactics (roof top snipers, drive-bys, they even may have poisoned the water in some places) so I don't want to get too calm yet, but things were definitely better tonight.

Hamduallah

Supposedly the army has most of the remaining terrorists holed up in a presidential palace in Tunis. The rumor is the terrorists have extremely sophisticated (American made) weapons, but inshallah they'll all be dead or in jail by morning. Now many Tunisians are saying they want the Saudis to send Ben Ali back so he can stand trial.

Now that the last elements of the old regime seem to swept away, the question is whats next.

The opposition political parties communists, social democrats, islamists (i'm not sure if they're Muslim Brotherhood affiliated or what) have all tried to claim some credit for this, but regular Tunisians don't really know that much about them or particularly support them.

This was a truly spontaneous, popular revolution and no exile political party can claim to be the impetus for it. The one institution that everyone loves and credits with helping the revolution is the army.

The Army never had a close relationship with the Ben Ali regime, and when he told them to fire on protesters the head general refused. After Ben Ali left, the army organized and legitimized the popular-defense groups that have been defending the neighborhoods from looters and terrorists and aggressively hunted down rogue police.

 The people here love the army so much that if they wanted to start a military dictatorship they would have the blessing of the majority of Tunisia.

However, I have heard completely unsubstantiated rumors that the general who refused to shoot protesters plans to run in the early elections for prime minister. The people love him and he would be a shoe in.

UPDATE

massive shooting as of 9:54 pm. different stories, some things sound like they could be large caliber, semi auto rifles (ie. snipers) most of it is full auto.

Either the badguys were laying low and the army got the jump on them, or they just started later then usual tonight.