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Leading Tunisian Opposition Figure Is Fatally Shot Leading Tunisian Opposition Figure Is Fatally Shot
(35 minutes later)
A leading Tunisian opposition politician who had been critical of the Islamist-led government was fatally shot outside his home in Tunis Wednesday, the government news agency said. CAIRO -- A leading Tunisian opposition politician who had fiercely criticized the Islamist-led government, accusing it of turning a blind eye to violence by religious hardliners, was fatally shot by unknown gunmen outside his home in Tunis on Wednesday, officials said. 
Chokri Belaid was shot just as he was leaving his house in the capital city, the state news agency TAP said. The politician, Chokri Belaid, a leading member of a leftist opposition alliance former in October, was shot just as he was leaving his house in the capital city, the state news agency TAP said.  A colleague in Mr. Belaid’s opposition alliance told Reuters that he was killed with four bullets to the head and chest. 
Mr. Belaid, the general secretary of the Democratic Patriotic Party, was one of the leaders of the opposition Popular Front, which had been formed in October to counter the government. Tunisia’s president, Moncef Marzouki, cut short an overseas trip and was scheduled to return to the country.  The prime minister, Hamada Jebali, called the killing “a political assassination and the assassination of the Tunisian revolution,” according to Reuters.
Mr. Belaid has emerged as a chief critic of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that leads the government in a coalition with two secular parties. While Ennahda has tried to reassure Tunisians that it would respect liberal democratic values and not impose a strict Muslim moral code, it has faced criticism with an indulgent attitude toward the ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing, which appeared to represent a dangerous new phase in Tunisia’s troubled transition to democracy.  Since becoming the first Arab country to overthrow its leader after the start of the uprisings in 2011, Tunisia has been torn between its legacy as a bastion for Arab secularism, and its new role, as a proving ground for the region’s emerging democracies in which Islamists play a leading role. 
In recent days, Mr. Belaid accused the Islamists of carrying out an attack on a meeting of his supporters on Saturday. “At the end of our meeting, a group of Ennahda mercenaries and Salafists attacked our activists,” Mr. Belaid said. Since the revolution, that competition has led to episodes of escalating political violence, often perpetrated by hardline Islamists known as Salafis -- but rarely killings. 
After word of the Mr. Belaid’s killing drifted through Tunis, large crowds of protesters gathered outside the Interior Ministry shouting, “Shame, shame Chokri died.” Mr. Belaid and others had accused Ennahda, the ruling Islamist party, of accommodating the Salafis, by refusing to prosecute them or crack down on the groups. In recent days, Mr. Belaid, a lawyer who had received numerous death threats including from hardline imams, had accused Islamists of carrying out an attack on a meeting of his supporters on Saturday.
Samir Dilou, a government spokesman, was quoted as calling the killing an “odious crime.” “At the end of our meeting, a group of Ennahda mercenaries and Salafists attacked our activists,” Mr. Belaid said.
No group immediately took responsibility for the shooting and its cause remained unclear.  In a statement on Wednesday, Ennahda denied any responsibility, calling the killing a “heinous crime” that targeted the “security and stability of Tunisia”.
It came as Tunisia faces profound social and religious uncertainties following the ouster of a dictatorial regime two years ago that set off what came to be known as the Arab Spring. As news of the assassination spread on Wednesday, thousands of people gathered in front of the interior ministry, a massive grey building that is still a hated symbol of Tunisia’s deposed authoritarian leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to express anger at Tunisia’s new government. “The people want the fall of the regime,” a group chanted, reprising the uprising’s refrain.  
“Resignation, resignation, the cabinet of treason!” others shouted. 
There were reports of attacks on Ennahda offices in different parts of the country, including in Sidi Bouzid, the town where the Tunisian revolt began. 

Kareem Fahim reported from Cairo and Gerry Mullany reported from Hong Kong. Monica Marks contributed reporting from Tunis and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.