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Tunisia attack: police arrest eight people | |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Tunisian security forces have arrested eight people suspected of having links to the jihadi killing of foreign tourists at a beach resort last week, a minister has said. | |
“Eight people with direct links to the carrying out of the operation, including a woman, have been arrested,” Kamel Jendoubi, the minister in charge of government relations with civil society, told a press conference. | |
Jendoubi said 12 people in total had been detained since the attack, but four have since been released. | |
A second government minister, Lazhar Akremi, had told reporters late on Wednesday that 12 people suspected of links to the attack had been arrested and police were searching for two more. | |
“This is a group who were trained in Libya, and who had the same objective. Two attacked the Bardo and one attacked Sousse,” Akremi, minister for parliamentary relations, told reporters. | |
Jendoubi said: “The whole of the network behind the operation has been uncovered.” | |
Carried out by 23-year-old student Seifeddine Rezgui, Friday’s attack at Port El Kantaoui south of Tunis was claimed by the Islamic State group, which controls large areas of Syria and Iraq. | |
Thirty of the victims were Britons. Jendoubi said British authorities were assisting with the investigation. “As part of the security cooperation between Tunisia and Britain, 10 British investigators are working on the probe,” he said. | |
After the attack the government pledged to boost security around hotels, beaches and attractions. “We have deployed 1,377 armed security agents at hotels and on beaches,” Jendoubi said. | |
Thirty-eight foreigners were killed in last Friday’s attack before the gunman was shot by police. Eight Britons killed in the attack were brought back to the UK on Wednesday and more will be flown back on Thursday. | |
In March, two gunmen killed 21 people at the Tunis Bardo museum, before they were also shot. |