El Kef

El Kef

El-Kef is a town in the northwest of Tunisia, about 175 km southwest of Tunis. It lies on the site of an ancient Carthaginian town, then a Roman colony, Sicca Veneria, which was at the center of the Mercenaries' War, triggered by a rebellion of unpaid mercenaries in the 3rd century BC. El-Kef was an important fortress under Ottoman rule, then occupied by France in 1881, and later maintained as a military garrison. During the years of the Second World War, it was named the temporary capital of Tunisia. Today, the town is a regional marketplace and a strategic road junction on the road to Algeria. Under an Ottoman casbah rising from a rocky hill in the town center are large cisterns, Roman baths and the remains of a temple. El Kef is Tunisia's highest town at 780 meters and its metropolis covers an area of 2,500 hectares, 45 hectares of which are located inside the old walled Medina quarter. El Kef, as the center of the Sufi movement, contains many Islamic religious edifices. The Sidi Bou Makhlouf Mausoleum contains the tomb of Sidi Bou Makhlouf, the founder of the Aissawa Brotherhood in Tunisia. The El Qadriya Mosque is another important site for Sufism. A heritage site of the old local Jewish community, the Ghriba Synagogue is revered by the region's Jews, who make the pilgrimage every year on the week marked by the festival of Sukkot. The well-preserved remains of the three-naved Roman basilica of Dar El Kous, dedicated to Saint Peter, dating from the early 5th century, are also found here.