By Tarek Amara
TUNIS, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Tunisian police have arrested a dozen suspected Islamist militants said to be planning attacks as Tunisia prepares for the election that is supposed to complete a post-revolution transition to democracy.
Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said on Friday police had seized explosives and weapons including rocket-propelled grenades destined for Mount Chaambi, where security forces have been hunting Islamist militants for months.
"Police arrested a terrorist group of 12 led by an Algerian and intending to carry out attacks," Aroui said, giving no further details.
Thousands of troops have been deployed since April in the in the Mount Chaambi region, close to the Algerian border, where jihadists who fled a French military intervention in Mali last year have taken refuge.
At least 15 soldiers were killed in attacks on checkpoints in the area in July and, last week, a deputy in Tunisia's transitional parliament survived an assassination attempt in the city of Kasserine, at the foot of the massif.
The small North African state is attempting to avoid the chaos that has followed the 2011 Arab Spring revoutions elsewhere in the region by holding its first free parliamentary election on Oct. 26 following the adoption of a new constitution.
But it is having to face down Islamist militancy, mostly from the al Qaeda offshoot Ansar al-Sharia.
Tunisian officials also worry about arms and fighters spilling over from neighbouring Libya, where the weak government is unable to subjugate a multitude of militias who have refused to disarm since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Washington announced last month that it planned to sell Tunisia a dozen Black Hawk attack helicopters worth an estimated $700 million. (Reporting By Tarek Amara; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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