Tunisia declares
Bus explosion in capital city leaves 12 dead, 20 hurt
30-day state of emergency after deadly bus explosion.
TUNIS, Tunisia — Tunisia’s president declared a 30-day state of emergency across the country and imposed an overnight curfew for the capital after an explosion Tuesday struck a bus carrying members of the presidential guard, killing at least 12 people and wounding 20 others.
The government described it as a terrorist attack.
The blast in Tunis is a new blow to a country that is seen as a model for the region but has struggled against Islamic extremist violence. Radical gunmen staged two attacks earlier this year that killed 60 people, devastated the tourism industry and rattled this young democracy.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack against the elite presidential guard.
President Beji Caid Essebsi, who wasn’t in the bus at the time, declared the state of emergency and curfew on the Tunis region. He scheduled an emergency meeting of his security council for Wednesday morning.
Speaking on national television, he said Tunisia is at “war against terrorism” and urged international cooperation against extremists who have killed hundreds around Europe and the Mideast in recent weeks, from Paris to Beirut to a Russian plane shot down over Egypt.
“I want to reassure the Tunisian people that we will vanquish terrorism,” he said.
Police fanned out throughout central Tunis after Tuesday’s explosion, and top government ministers visited the scene of the attack after it was cordoned off by police.
Interior Ministry spokesman Walid Louguini said that at least 12 were killed and 20 wounded in the blast.
Witness Bassem Trifi, a human rights lawyer, said the explosion hit the driver’s side of the bus.
“I saw at least five corpses on the ground,” he said. “This was not an ordinary explosion.”
The attack came days after authorities increased the security level in the capital and deployed security forces in unusually high numbers.
Earlier this month, Tunisian authorities announced the dismantling of a cell that it said had planned attacks at police stations and hotels in the seaside city of Sousse, about 95 miles southeast of Tunis.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner, speaking in Washington, said the U.S. was still seeking details on what happened in Tunis, but added, “We strongly condemn the attack.”
Secretary of State John Kerry, who visited Tunis earlier this month, pledged expanded economic and security support for Tunisia, whose popular uprising unleashed democracy movements across the region in 2011 known as the Arab Spring.
Kerry said the U.S. and Tunisia would soon begin negotiations on a major loan guarantee and were discussing expanded military cooperation, including intelligence sharing and the possible use of drones to collect information about potential threats.
A U.S. military team was expected in Tunisia around late November to begin those talks.
Tunisia is the only Arab Spring country to have solidified a new democracy, but it is facing serious economic and security challenges.
Tunisia’s tourism industry has been hit especially hard this year.
Shootings at a luxury beach hotel in Sousse last June killed 38 people, mostly tourists, while an attack in March by Islamist extremists at Tunisia’s famed Bardo museum near the capital killed 22 people.
Tunisia’s influential Islamist party also denounced the explosion and urged Tunisians to unite behind security forces as they hunt for the perpetrators.
“Tunisia is targeted because it is a democracy and represents a model of moderate Islam,” it said.