Rifle was hidden in a parasol – then the killings started
LAUGHING and joking among the midday bathers and sunseekers, he looked like any other tourist.
In fact Seifeddine Yacoubi was carefully selecting the victims he would murder with the Kalashnikov hidden in his parasol.
The British were his prime targets on the crowded Tunisian beachfront at El Kantaoui near Sousse.
But Germans, Belgians and Tunisians were also among his 37 victims – with 36 seriously wounded.
‘ He was laughing and joking around, like a normal guy,’ said one witness. ‘He was choosing who to shoot. Some people, he was saying to them “you go away”. He was choosing tourists, British, French.’
Many tourists barricaded themselves in their rooms after the 23year-old student opened fire.
Olivia Leathley, 24, a chef from Chorlton, Manchester, said she and her boyfriend escaped the massacre at the Imperial Marhaba hotel only because she was charging her phone.
‘We then heard a shot from inside the hotel. Somebody just shouted “run” so we sprinted off in all directions,’ she said. ‘The machine gun fire was so close, it sounded like it was right behind us.
‘I was then on the phone to my dad, screaming at the top of my lungs and telling him “I love you, I love you”.
‘My dad Glenn was saying “I love you” and shouting prayers down the phone, begging “Lord, protect them”. We eventually found an office building and hid in a room. As soon as I got somewhere safe, I threw up.
‘I later came across a woman who said her husband had been shot in the stomach on the beach. He was bleeding heavily, but she had to leave him there.’
A hotel worker said a shoeless Yacoubi, who arrived on the beach by inflatable boat, had tried to blend in with the crowd. He added: ‘He opened fire with a Kalashnikov. He was a young guy dressed in shorts – like he was a tourist himself.’
Rafik Chelli, Tunisia’s secretary of state for national security, said the gunman – named locally as Yacoubi – entered the Marhaba complex through the pool area.
‘He entered by the beach, dressed like someone who was going to swim, and he had a beach umbrella with his gun in it. Then when he came to the beach he used his weapon,’ Mr Chelli said. Yacoubi was shot dead by the security forces.
Because of the Ramadan religious period, there were few Tunisians on the beach and few children because most schools have yet to break up.
Houcine Jenayah, a businessman, said the gunman arrived at speed on an inflatable Zodiac boat.
‘He opened fire and had grenades with him,’ said Mr Jenayah. ‘He hid his Kalashnikov behind a parasol that he had in his hand.’
Within minutes of the massacre, photographs had been posted on an Instagram account showing a middle-aged man wearing blue shorts lying face down in the sand with a pool of blood around his head.
Other bodies were covered with towels and marked with numbers.
Father-of-three John Yeoman, 46, of Kettering, Northamptonshire, used a bed to barricade himself and his family in the room of his hotel. ‘We were in the pool when we heard automatic gunfire. People ran past saying there was an armed man on the beach,’ he said.
Tweeting a picture of his barricaded room, he added: ‘Hope it’s enough. It’s been going on for 20 minutes. We blocked in our room. There are sounds of a gun battle.’
The final moments of the terrorist were captured on camera as, weapon in hand, he prowled the streets of Sousse. With the gunman dead, police pursued suspects through the streets of Sousse, which is about 90 miles south of the capital Tunis.
More than three hours after the massacre an apparent accomplice was arrested near the motorway.
Pictures showed him being punched in the face by a furious woman as he was marched through the town by armed police.
Police were pictured detaining
several men in the aftermath of the carnage but it was not clear last night whether the suspects were connected to the attack.
While there were multiple accounts of what happened, most witnesses spoke of a lone gunman who was later shot dead by the Tunisian security forces.
Zohra Driss, owner of the Marhaba, confirmed the gunman started firing from the beach before moving on to the hotel swimming pool. Last night it was claimed that around 15 young Tunisians had been stopped from travelling to Belgrade and 30 others banned from travelling to Istanbul for reasons that were not disclosed.
Interior ministry sources denied reports that Tunisians aged under 35 had been banned from leaving the country.
But they admitted port and airport controls had been strengthened and youngsters were being quizzed as part of ‘preventative measures’.
Tunisia has seen militant Islamists gain strength since the overthrow of long-serving ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in a popular uprising in 2011.
Democratic elections after the removal of Ben Ali saw the moderate Islamist Ennahda party take power before the secularist Nidaa Tounes party won control following a parliamentary poll in October.
Neither party has been able effectively to combat Islamist violence.
This has been made worse by a conflict in neighbouring Libya and by Tunisian fighters returning home after going to join Islamist campaigns in Iraq and Syria where up to 10,000 have fought.
Around 1.2million tourists – a third of them British – visit Tunisia every year. Most are drawn to Sousse, which has large beachfront hotels and wide sandy beaches.