Tunisia hit anew by turmoil
TUNIS—Tunisian opposition politician Mohamed Brahmi was shot dead on Thursday in the second such assassination this year, setting off violent protests against the Islamist-led government in the capital and elsewhere.
“This criminal gang has killed the free voice of Brahmi,” his widow, Mbarka Brahmi, told Reuters, without specifying who she thought was behind the shooting outside their home in Tunis.
Brahmi’s sister later accused the main Islamist Ennahda party of being behind the killing. “Ennahda killed my brother,” Souhiba Brahmi said. Ennahda has condemned the killing.
The politician’s wife said Brahmi had left the house after receiving a telephone call. She heard shots and found his body lying on the ground outside as two men fled on a motorcycle.
Brahmi belonged to the secu- lar, Arab nationalist Popular Front party, whose then-leader, Chokri Belaid, was killed in a similar way on Feb. 6. His death ignited the worst violence in Tunisia since President Zine alAbidine Ben Ali fell in 2011.
Divisions between Islamists and their secular opponents have deepened since the popular uprising against Ben Ali, which unleashed unrest across the Arab world, unseating rulers in Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and leading to a civil war in Syria.
Brahmi, 58, was a critic of the Ennahda-led ruling coalition and a member of the Constituent Assembly that has drafted a new constitution for the North African nation of 11 million.
The assassination drew swift international condemnation.