Tunisia called in army reservists and shuttered dozens of unregulated mosques in a security crackdown after militants killed dozens of people at a seaside resort.
Kuwait, which was also hit by a deadly attack on Friday, held a funeral for the victims and said suspects have been detained.
The Tunisian government declared closed military zones in several mountain areas where militants have been known to hide. The measures came hours after a gunman killed at least 38 people in Sousse, an attack that threatens to batter the north African nation’s vital tourism industry.
The attack was a “painful and unexpected blow” that could have a “heavy impact on the Tunisian economy in general and on the tourism sector in particular,” Prime Minister Habib Essid said. In March, 17 people were killed in an attack on a museum popular with tourists.
Before that, Tunisia had escaped much of the worst unrest that other Arab Spring nations, such as Libya, Syria and Egypt, have endured. The country has increasingly fallen within the Islamic State’s cross-hairs, though, as the extremist group battles to expand its presence in neighboring Libya.
The jihadist group claimed responsibility for the Tunisian beach shooting, using Twitter to identify the gunman as Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani. He was shot dead by security forces, according to the Tunisian state news agency.
Hotel Security
Essid said reservist forces had been called up to defend sites such as hotels and shopping centers. In a pre-dawn press conference, he also said the government had ordered closed 80 mosques that operated outside of official regulations
At least 15 of those killed Friday were U.K. nationals, and that toll “may well rise,” said U.K. Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood, the Press Association reported. That makes it the “most significant terrorist attack on the British people” since the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings targeting the London subway system, which killed 52 civilians, Ellwood said.
U.K. travel companies Thomson Airways Ltd. and First Choice Holidays Plc. said Saturday they sent 10 planes to Tunisia to repatriate about 2,500 holidaymakers.
Tourism is central to Tunisia’s hopes of reviving an economy that slowed after the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
The other attacks on Friday included a bomb that ripped through a Shiite mosque in Kuwait, leaving 27 people dead and more than 200 injured. Thousands joined a funeral procession for the victims on Saturday.
Caliphate Anniversary
Kuwait’s interior ministry said it arrested the owner and driver of the car used to transport the bomber to the Al-Imam Al-Sadiq mosque. The Associated Press cited police as saying that a number of suspects are being interrogated.
There were also attacks on Friday at a gas plant near Lyon in southeastern France owned by Air Products & Chemicals Inc., where a person was decapitated, and at a base in Somalia where Al-Shabaab militants said they killed about 30 African Union peace keepers.
Intelligence services are investigating whether there are any links between the incidents, which follow calls by Islamic State for a wave of violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. They also come days before the anniversary next week of the jihadist group’s declaration of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
FRENCH VERSION
