Tunisian National Navy

The Tunisian National Navy (al-Bahriya al-Watania al-Tunisia) is one of the three services of the Tunisian Armed Forces, subordinate to the Ministry of National Defence and directed by a chief of staff of the navy. Fleet headquarters and the principal facility are at Bizerte, adjoining the Menzel Bourguiba naval installations on Lake Bizerte; secondary bases and berthing stations are located at La Goulette (Tunis), Kelibia on Cap Bon, and Sfax, with forward support at Zarzis covering the Gulf of Gabès. The service maintains marine commando forces organised in the 51st and 52nd regiments, together with a special operations maritime task group.

The navy operates no submarines, frigates or corvettes. Its largest units are four Damen MSOPV 1400 offshore patrol vessels, Jugurtha, Syphax, Hannon and Sophonisbe, built at Galați in Romania and delivered from 2018: 72 m hulls of roughly 1,300 tonnes with helicopter facilities and a 20-knot speed. Fast attack craft include the La Galite class of Combattante III design and ex-German Type 143 Albatros boats transferred from the Deutsche Marine. Older French-built Bizerte-class P48 craft and British Vosper patrol boats remain nominally on strength but are of advanced age. Two former US Coast Guard Island-class cutters were commissioned at La Goulette in April 2025 as Tazarka (P305) and Menzel Bourguiba (P306). The inshore force rests on a large number of SAFE Boats Archangel craft of 65 and 27 foot types supplied through US assistance, alongside the locally built Istiklal class. Amphibious lift is limited to a BATRAL-type landing ship and CTM landing craft of French origin.

Missions centre on territorial waters and exclusive economic zone surveillance along roughly 1,300 km of coastline, fisheries protection, counter-smuggling, and interdiction of irregular migration departing the Sfax, Kerkennah, Chebba and Zarzis areas for Lampedusa and Sicily. Search and rescue within the Tunisian search and rescue region, declared to the International Maritime Organization, is a recurring task, coordinated with the Garde nationale maritime, the National Guard component that handles most littoral law enforcement. The navy also monitors the maritime approaches to the Libyan border and has associated with NATO's Operation Sea Guardian in the central Mediterranean.

Tunisia builds the Istiklal-class patrol boat domestically through the Société de Construction Industrielle et Navale, a 27.5 m design of about 26 knots; units include Istiklal (P201), Utique (P211), Kerkouane (P212) and El Jem (P213). Foreign procurement remains concentrated on the United States, which cleared a Foreign Military Sale of additional 65-foot Archangel boats valued at some 110 million dollars, and on European Union-funded programmes: three 20 m self-righting search and rescue craft built by Cartubi of Trieste were handed over in July 2026, following two delivered in 2025 under the Civipol-implemented support programme, with further hulls under construction.