Attacks rock Tunisia

Double suicide attacks shook Tunisia’s capital yesterday, even as the country was plunged into uncertainty with the hospitalisation of President Beji Caid Essebsi who was said to be in “critical condition”. Yesterday’s blasts -- one on a central avenue and another against a security base -- killed a police officer and wounded at least eight people including several civilians, the interior ministry said.

A correspondent saw body parts strewn in the road around a police car after the first attack, which took place on Habib Bourguiba, a central avenue near the old city. The interior ministry said one policeman died from his wounds after that blast, while another policeman and three civilians were wounded.

“It was a suicide attack,” interior ministry spokesman Sofiene Zaag said. Half an hour later, the second attack targeted a base of the national guard, judicial police and the anti-terror branch in the capital. “An individual blew himself up outside the back door” of the base, wounding four security personnel, Zaag said, adding that both bombers were men.

Just hours after news of the attacks broke, the presidency announced that Essebsi “was taken seriously ill and transferred to the military hospital in Tunis”. Key adviser Firas Guefrech described the 92-year-old leader as in “critical condition” and in a later tweet said that Essebsi was “stable”, urging supporters to pray for his recovery.

Essebsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, came to power in 2014, three years after the Arab Spring uprising toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked revolts in several Arab nations.

No immediate claim

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. Civil protection units and police rapidly deployed to Habib Bourguiba avenue, where the interior ministry is located. Some passersby fainted while others fled in panic as shops and offices were closed by the police.

Some people crowded around the scene of the attack, expressing anger at the authorities. “It is a cowardly terrorist operation... (to) destabilise Tunisians, the economy and democratic transition,” Prime Minister Youssef Chahed told reporters.