One of the gunmen who killed tourists and others at a prominent Tunisian museum was known to intelligence services, but no formal links to a particular extremist group have been established, the Prime Minister said on Thursday.
The attack on Wednesday on Tunisia’s National Bardo Museum left 23 dead, scores wounded and threatens both Tunisia’s fledgling democracy and its struggling tourism industry. It was the worst attack at a tourist site in Tunisia in years, and a leading cruise line announced it is now cancelling its Tunisian stops.
Razor wire ringed the museum on Thursday and security forces guarded major thoroughfares in Tunis, the capital, as authorities hunted for two or three more people believed to have been involved in the attack.
Wednesday’s two attackers burst from a vehicle wielding assault rifles and began gunning down tourists climbing out of buses. The attackers then charged inside to take hostages before being killed in a firefight with security forces.
A Spanish man and a pregnant Spanish woman who survived hid in the museum all night in fear and were retrieved safely on Thursday morning by security forces, Tunisia’s Health Minister told The Associated Press. Spain’s foreign minister said police searched all night for the pair, Juan Carlos Sanchez and Cristina Rubio.
Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid, in an interview with France’s RTL radio, said Tunisia was working with other countries to learn more about the attackers, identified as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui. They were killed by security services in a raid.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Tunisia has faced scattered extremist violence, and a disproportionately large number of Tunisians have joined Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq.
The attack spells oceans of trouble for the tourism industry, which brings throngs of foreigners every year to Tunisia’s Mediterranean beaches, desert oases and ancient Roman ruins and which had just started to recover after years of slump. Two major cruise ships whose passengers had been among the victims left the port of Tunis early Thursday.
Moncef Hamdoun, an official with the Charles Nicolle hospital where many victims were taken, said seven of the dead remain unidentified. He listed the dead as three Japanese women, a Spanish man and a Spanish woman, a Colombian woman, an Australian man, a British woman, a Belgian woman, a Frenchman and a Polish man.
The Spanish couple was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and it was the first time they had travelled outside Spain, the Spanish Foreign Minister told reporters. Their two children were flying to Tunis along with a terror attack counsellor to retrieve their parents’ bodies.
One victim, identified in Japanese media as 66-year-old Machiyo Narusawa, was among a group of 70 Japanese tourists who travelled from Tokyo. Travel agency Cruise Planet said many on the tour are retired couples.
A Tunisian translator for Polish tourists, Abdelwaheb Khedimi, told TVN24 that he was standing across the street from the museum gate when he saw two men run through the gate, produce automatic weapons and start firing in the direction of some 10 tour buses in the museum’s parking lot.
“It was a total shock,” Mr. Khedimi said.
A Polish military plane arrived in Tunis on Thursday morning to bring back Polish tourists who want to return home. Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said some people from Poland are still missing, and Polish prosecutors say they will open their own investigation into the attack
Costa Crociere cruise line announced on Thursday it has decided to cancel all its upcoming stops in Tunisian ports following the attack at the Bardo. The cruises will find alternate ports of call, which are still being defined.
“The security of our guests and crew is Costa Crociere’s priority and a necessary condition for calm and pleasant vacations,” the company said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Twitter accounts associated with the group praised the attack. Ifriqiyah Media, which has aired claims from Tunisian extremists in the past, posted what it said were details about the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online. The post does not say who orchestrated the attack.
Tunisian legislator Bochra Belhaj Hmida, of the secular majority party Nida Tunis, told the AP that about 2,000 suspected terrorists are believed to be in Tunisia, many of whom joined extremists in Iraq or Syria then returned home.
“They are in a situation of being lone wolves, where each of them is free to do the actions they want,” she said. “These are people who are let loose with weapons and wherever they can strike, they will not forgo the opportunity.”
Tunisians overthrew their dictator in 2011 and kicked off the Arab Spring that spread across the region. While the uprising built a new democracy, the country has also struggled with economic problems and extremism, though violence has not targeted tourist sites.
“This new act of barbarity sounds an alarm,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. “It announces that the world has changed.”
Video: Tunisia's President Essebsi visits victims of militant attack on national museum
