Interpol offers help to track Friday’s culprits
PARIS: Shaken by the tragedies which had together claimed over 60 lives, the international police agency Interpol offered its investigative help to the France, tunisia and Kuwait.
Interpol Secretary-General Juergen Stock said the attacks on Friday “show the truly global dimension to current terrorist threats.”
The United Nations joined countries around the world in condemning the attack on a US gas factory in France as well as attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait.
The French attack Friday came on the same day as a gunman mowed down scores of tourists on a beach in Tunisia and a suicide bomber killed over two dozen worshippers at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said those “responsible for such appalling acts of violence must be swiftly brought to justice” and Interpol offered its help to all three nations.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Col Steve Warren said it was too soon to tell whether the three attacks were the work of Islamic State extremists but added “we unequivocally condemn these terrorist attacks.”
GUNMAN KNOWN TO INTELLIGENCE
One of the two gunmen who wreaked havoc in Tunisia was known to intelligence services, Tunisia’s prime minister said on Thursday.
But no formal links to a particular terrorist group have been established in an attack that threatens the country’s fledgling democracy and struggling tourism industry.
In an interview with France’s RTL radio, Prime Minister Habib Essid said, “Tunisia is working with other countries to learn more about the attackers, identified as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui.”
He said Laabidi had been flagged to intellig ence, although not for “anything special.”
The attack also spelled new trouble for the tourism industry, which brings throngs of foreigners to Tunisia.