Tunisian Museum Attack Leads to Firing of Chiefs

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/world/africa/tunisian-museum-attack-leads-to-firing-of-chiefs.html

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TUNIS — Prime Minister Habib Essid of Tunisia dismissed six police commanders on Monday, including the capital’s police chief, for security failures brought to light after gunmen fatally shot 20 foreign tourists last week.

In an interview in his office in the old city of Tunis, the prime minister said he had removed the chiefs after visiting the museum with a group of top officials on Sunday. He said he had found lapses in security even after the attack, the country’s worst terrorist assault in more than a decade.

“I went to look close up and see how things function,” he said. “We told the interior minister there are failings and we have to prevent another catastrophe.”

There were problems in controlling access to the compound that houses the National Bardo Museum, a historic palace that has a large collection of Roman mosaics, and the parliament buildings, he said, adding that the police lacked the means to enforce adequate security.

The attack at the museum on Wednesday — in which two gunmen fatally shot 20 cruise ship passengers from Japan, Poland, Italy, Colombia and elsewhere — has shaken both the country and the new Tunisian government.

Tunisia successfully held legislative and presidential elections last fall and seemed set for a brighter future after completing a difficult transition since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. Mr. Essid, 66, has been in office barely more than one month, and President Beji Caid Essebsi, the first democratically elected president of the country, only three months.

Contrary to reports last week that the gunmen had been heading for parliament, the attack was aimed specifically at Tunisia’s tourist industry, its main source of foreign exchange, and at destabilizing its democratic and economic transition, Mr. Essid said. “They wanted to attack an economic sector that is very important for Tunisia, a sector that is already in difficulties, and try to sink once and for all the economic development of the country.”

The police and staff members at the museum said that the gunmen appeared to single out the foreign tourists, noting that Tunisian museum employees, including people at the reception area, were spared. The gunmen began shooting at tourists emerging from buses and when police forces began arriving, the men tossed grenades and retreated into the museum, he said. They fatally shot an officer and his dog outside the museum.

“The objective was to prevent the economy of the country reaping a good harvest because everything is there to succeed,” Mr. Essid said. “Now the country is going to cross the last stage of the transition towards economic and social development of the country and they wanted by this barbaric act to block, to prevent this political transition.”

“I always say democracy is good, but it has to deliver. They do not want democracy to deliver,” he said.

In the days since the attack, the government has come under criticism for not providing better security at such a prominent site in the heart of the capital.

Mr. Essid said the gunmen had slipped through the front gate of the compound and taken advantage of a moment when tourist buses were pulling in, then had hidden behind them as the police were occupied. Nevertheless, counterterrorism police garrisoned nearby responded quickly and effectively to save many lives, Mr. Essid said.