Tunisia begins security drive around tourist sites


(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Tunisia said it started deploying armed police around tourist sites on Wednesday after last week's massacre at a beach resort, as authorities finished identifying all 38 people killed in the jihadist attack.

Britain said it was transporting home eight bodies of its nationals killed in the assault, with Tunisia's health ministry confirming that 30 Britons were among the dead.

On Friday, a student identified as 23-year-old Seifeddine Rezgui went on a bloody rampage in Port El Kantaoui, shooting 38 foreign tourists with a Kalashnikov assault rifle at the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba hotel in the popular resort.

It was the second attack on tourists in Tunisia claimed by the Islamic State group in just three months, after IS claimed a March attack on the National Bardo Museum that killed 22 people.

In its wake, Tunisian authorities vowed new heightened security measures, including 1,000 armed officers to reinforce tourism police - who will be armed for the first time - at hotels, beaches and other attractions.

"This morning, we started to deploy and armed police will be in hotels within the hour," interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told AFP.

Security officials "are busy deploying at Hammamet," a seaside resort in the south of Tunis, he added.

But at the site of the ancient city of Carthage outside Tunis on Wednesday morning, AFP correspondents saw no police at the Antonine Baths and just one guard at the Carthage Museum.


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