Tunisia is the Arab Springโ€™s lone success story, with a democratically-elected government. But a series of ISIS-claimed attacks have blighted the countryโ€™s economy. The governmentโ€™s inability to address these sources of instability has allowed ISIS to maintain a presence in the country. Since November 2015, the country has been under a state of emergency following an ISIS-claimed suicide bombing on a bus carrying presidential guards that killed 12 in Tunis.

The tourism industry, which accounts for 8 percent of Tunisiaโ€™s gross domestic product, suffered severe losses after two attacks in 2015โ€”one at the Bardo museum in Tunis, the second a massacre in the coastal city of Sousse, which both targeted foreign tourists.

More than 4,000 Tunisians have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight for extremist groups, making Tunisia the worldโ€™s largest source of foreign fighters in the conflict. Government numbers from December 2015 indicated that 700 of them had returnedโ€”a number that has likely grown as ISIS continues to lose territory in both countries.