Tunisia on alert for more attacks
SOUSSE, Tunisia: Hundreds of armed police patrolled the streets of Tunisia’s beach resorts yesterday, and the government said it would deploy hundreds more inside hotels after the Islamist militant attack in Sousse that killed 39 foreigners.
Thousands of tourists have left Tunisia since Friday’s attack, which has shocked the North African country. It was one of three attacks on three continents that day apparently linked to hardline Islamists.
In Kuwait, a bomber went to a Shia mosque to carry out the country’s worst militant attack yet, officials said on Saturday, as thousands calling for national unity turned out to bury some of the 27 killed.
The self-styled Islamic State claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing while 2 000 worshippers were praying at the Imam al-Sadeq mosque on Friday.
LONDON: Britain says Islamist militants may launch further attacks on tourist resorts in Tunisia after a gunman killed 39 people, including at least 15 Britons, in the worst assault of its kind in modern Tunisian history.
Attacks may be carried out by “individuals who are unknown to the authorities, and whose actions are inspired by terrorist groups via social media”, said the Foreign Office on its website late at the weekend.
UK Home Secretary Theresa May, was expected to chair a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency response committee yesterday to ensure the government’s response to events in Tunisia was adequate. She said she had not seen evidence that Islamist militants had specifically targeted British tourists in Friday’s attack.
Britain’s Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond wrote yesterday the murders would inform Britain’s defence and security this year and stiffen London’s resolve to tackle what they described as the poisonous narrative of Islamist extremism.
With some British tourists holidaying in Tunisia still unaccounted for, May said the number of Britons confirmed killed in the attack was expected to rise. Many Britons were due to fly home from Tunisia yesterday.
In Britain, the threat level from international terrorism remains at “severe”, its second-highest setting, meaning an attack is highly likely. May said authorities had thwarted 40 attacks in the last decade and “a number of plots” in recent months. – Reuters