“Star Wars” fans have been warned to stay far, far away from a Tunisian town that was the inspiration for Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine — due to the risk of being taken hostage by ISIS.
The dusty desert town of Tataouine, Tunisia, has recently been overrun with bloodthirsty jihadists who have pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State, according to CNN.
The community’s remote landscape had famously inspired director George Lucas to dub his hero’s similarly sand-filled planet “Tatooine” — and even convinced him to film several “Star Wars” scenes nearby.
Tunisian locations not very far from Tataouine that were used in the movies include Ksar Medenine, Ksar Oueld Soltane, Ksar Hadada, Matmata, the Island of Djerba, and Tozeur, according to starwars.com.
But most people only know them by their settings in the films — such as Anakin Skywalker’s home and the Slave Quarters in “Episode I,” the canyon where Luke first met Obi-Wan Kenobi after being attacked by Tusken Raiders in “Episode IV” and the memorable igloo-esque homestead of Anakin and Luke Skywalker seen throughout the six-film saga.
Tunisia’s Foreign Office warned Tuesday of a series of potential “indiscriminate” attacks at the popular sites, adding that “there is a high threat from terrorism, including kidnapping” at many of the locations — which are visited by scores of tourists daily, the Daily Mirror reports.
The threat came exactly one week after terrorists armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, where they slaughtered 21 people.
Earlier this month, two arms caches that included rocket-propelled grenade launchers and more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition were found near Tataouine. The ISIS-devoted extremists have reportedly turned the outskirts of the Sahara Desert into a full-fledged weapons way station just 60 miles from the Libyan border, according to CNN.
Tunisian authorities have been doing everything they can to stop locals from traveling abroad to wage jihad for the Islamic State.
Officials have even banned men between the ages of 18 and 35 from going to Libya unless they can provide residence papers and proof of employment there.
The two gunmen who were killed during the March 18 museum massacre were both reportedly trained to kill at a Libyan terrorist camp.