Tunisia: Policeman and three militants dead after ‘terrorist’ attack

Safety officers in Tunisia say a police officer has been killed and one other wounded in a knife attack within the coastal resort of Sousse.

Three assailants had been shot dead after the incident, which is being described as a terrorist attack.

The newest incident comes two days after a brand new authorities was sworn in.

The suspected militants rammed their car right into a Nationwide Guard checkpoint at a junction close to the town’s port.

“A patrol of two Nationwide Guard officers was attacked with a knife within the centre of Sousse,” Nationwide Guard spokesman Houcem Eddine Jebabli mentioned, in response to the AFP information company.

“One died as a martyr and the opposite was wounded and is hospitalised,” he mentioned.

“This was a terrorist attack”.

The knifemen stole weapons and a police car throughout the attack earlier than making off, Mr Jebabli mentioned. Safety forces took off after them via the vacationer areas of El Kantaoui.

“In a firefight three terrorists had been killed,” he mentioned, including that two weapons and the automotive had been recovered.

It’s unclear if the assailants had been tied to any specific extremist group, however the wider menace in Tunisia lately has been from dispersed sleeper cells composed of jihadists that returned from Syria, Libya, and Iraq, says the BBC’s Rana Jawad in Tunis.

Thirty-eight individuals misplaced their lives when a gunman opened hearth on vacationers staying in El Kantaoui in June 2015. Thirty of these killed had been British vacationers staying on the Resort Rui Imperial Marhaba.

The Islamic State (IS) mentioned it was behind the attack by Tunisian pupil Seifeddine Rezgui.

The scenario in Tunisia has improved vastly since then, though a state of emergency is in place.

This week Tunisia’s parliament authorized a brand new authorities fashioned by Prime Minister-designate Hichem Mechichi.

Mr Mechichi appointed technocrats to his authorities quite than members of political events as had been the case up to now.