A Tunisian Salafist leader wanted for deadly violence said the government is in thrall to Western powers, according to an interview banned by the authorities but posted Tuesday on the Internet.

Abu Iyadh, who heads the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, also said however he was ready for dialogue with the country's ruling Islamist party Ennahda.

Tunisia is nearing agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a $1.78 billion standby loan to protect the economy from external shocks, the IMF said Monday.

Negotiations for the Precautionary Stand-By Arrangement are at an "advanced stage," the IMF's mission chief to Tunisia, Amine Mati, said following meetings last month with Tunisian authorities.

Tunisian “Famissima” has been selected as one of the semi-finalist teams for this year’s MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab Region Startup Competition for the Ideas Track

Idea Inspiration

Tunisia's presidency said Thursday it is extending for one month the state of emergency imposed after the fall two years ago of long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

"President Moncef Marzouki has decided, after consulting the heads of government and Constituent Assembly, to extend the state of emergency from February 1 to March 2, 2013," a presidency statement said.

The euphoria of the Arab Spring has given way to abuses as new governments fail to respect freedom of expression and other basic rights, Human Rights Watch warned in its annual report Thursday.

The U.S.-based group urged the fledgling regimes of countries such as Egypt, Libya and Tunisia to build "genuine" democracies, saying that even democratically-elected governments did not have a mandate to ignore human rights.

Two Tunisian security agents were wounded in a gunfight with suspected hardline Islamists during a night time operation in the western town of Kasserine, police said on Tuesday.

"The special operation targeted three people suspected of belonging to a Salafist group," said a senior police official in Kasserine.

A military tribunal on Tuesday handed two police officers jail terms of 10 and 20 years respectively for the "voluntary and involuntary homicide" of five Tunisians killed during the 2010-2011 uprising.

The tribunal in the central city of Sfax sentenced Commander Mourad Jouini to 10 years in prison and Lieutenant Bassam Akremi, in absentia, to 20 years, a court official told Agence France Presse.

Tunisia has deployed special forces near oil and gas sites in the far south, close to the Algerian border, in the wake of the In Amenas hostage-taking attack, security sources said on Tuesday.

The deployment, which began over the weekend, will reinforce military units already stationed in the desert "in order to protect oil and gas sites around the region," said a security source in southern Tunisia.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki has decided to postpone a visit to Gaza until the end of March so as not to impede with Palestinian reconciliation efforts, his office announced on Sunday.

It said the delay to the visit planned for February 9 was agreed at a meeting between Marzouki and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of an African Union summit.

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said on Saturday that lengthy consultations on a Tunisian government reshuffle had failed and that he will choose a new line-up unless a compromise is found soon.

"We did not agree on a government reshuffle but the negotiations were positive," said Jebali, whose Islamist Ennahda party heads a coalition government with the secular parties Ettakatol and Congress for the Republic.