First arrests made in Tunisia beach attack
The authorities arrested a significant number of people from the network that was behind this terrorist criminal, said Interior minister
PORT EL KANTAOUI (TUNISIA): Tunisia said on Monday it had made its first arrests after a beach massacre that killed 38 people, as European officials paid tribute to victims of the country’s worst militant attack.
British Home Secretary Theresa May, speaking at the scene of Friday’s gun attack at a Tunisian holiday resort, vowed that “the terrorists will not win” after London warned that Britain’s death toll could rise to “around 30”.
The massacre, claimed by the IS militant group, was the deadliest for Britain since the 2005 London bombings, and there are fears it could inflict a devastating blow to Tunisia’s vital tourism industry.
Interior Minister Hajem Gharsalli said the authorities had arrested “a significant number of people from the network that was behind this terrorist criminal”, referring to the lone gunman.
May travelled on Monday to the resort of Port el Kantaoui south of Tunis, and promised to fight extremism in the wake of the attack.
“We will be united in working together to defeat them but united also in working to defend our values,” May said at a joint news conference with her German, French and Tunisian counterparts after visiting the scene of the killings.
“We are resolved... to defeat those who would do us harm, to defeat those who would undermine our freedom and democracy and to ensure that the terrorists do not win,” she added.
Wreath laying
May and the German and French interior ministers, Thomas de Maiziere and Bernard Cazeneuve, joined Tunisian officials in laying a wreath in the sand near the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel where the attack happened.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister David Cameron, meanwhile, said Britain had identified 18 of its nationals killed, but warned that the number may rise to “around 30”. Tunisia says four other victims have been identified as being tourists from Germany, Portugal, Ireland and Belgium. Ireland said on Sunday three of its citizens were killed.
Shocking new amateur footage from the attack has emerged on social media, showing the gunman walking calmly along the shore and bloodied bodies on the sand.
Intermittent gunfire can be heard in the 11-minute amateur video, recorded by a Tunisian man using his mobile phone who can be heard asking: “Why do you kill people? Why?”
The attacker, identified as 23-year-old student Seifeddine Rezgui, pulled a Kalashnikov assault rifle from inside a beach umbrella and opened fire on holidaymakers at the resort before being shot dead. Cameron vowed to mount a full investigation and called for “a response at home and abroad” to violent fundamentalism.
“We must be stronger at standing up for our values -- of peace, democracy, tolerance, freedom,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.