TUNIS — Gunmen opened fire on tourists on a beach in the Tunisian seaside resort of Sousse on Friday, killing at least 27. One militant was killed while another fled and is being pursued by security forces.
The attack shattered a period of calm in Tunisia, the country where the Arab Spring uprisings began, since a March strike on the capital's Bardo museum that left nearly two dozen people dead, many of them foreign nationals.
Armed with Kalashnikovs, gunmen in Sousse opened fire on tourists on a beach near two popular hotels, Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali al-Arawi said by phone.
He said a police operation to catch the second gunman was continuing and that more exchanges of fire had taken place.
He said one gunman behind "the terrorist attack was killed during an exchange of fire with security forces"
"A terrorist infiltrated the buildings from the back before opening fire on the residents of the hotel, including foreigners and Tunisians," he said.
Local tourism official Salwa al-Qadari said the victims included British and German nationals. Scandinavian tour operators said several hundred Swedes, Norwegians and Danes were holidaying in the area at the time.
Holidaymaker Susan Ricketts told Sky News she was on the beach with her sister when she heard gunfire.
"Everyone just started running and screaming. The whole place just cleared," she said.
A tourist from Ireland said she was on the beach in Tunisia with her two sons when she heard what she first thought were fireworks.
Elizabeth O'Brien told Ireland's RTE radio she looked about 500 metres away and saw a hot-air balloon collapse, then heard rapid firing and saw two people who were going to go up in the balloon running toward her.
O'Brien said she rushed to the sea to get her children and that waiters and security on the beach urged them to run as they raced toward the hotel. They ran to their room and holed up there.
Sousse, 150 kilometres from Tunis, is one of the country’s most popular beach resorts that attracts tourists from Europe and neighbouring north African countries.
The violence laid bare the challenges in stabilizing Tunisia following the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
While the North African nation had largely avoided the turmoil and violence that swept the region in recent years, the fracturing of neighboring Libya between two governments, allied militias and groups including Islamic State has put it on the front lines of the battle against extremism.
At least 3,000 Tunisians are estimated to have left their homes to become one of the largest groups of foreign fighters in territories held by Islamic State.
The group, which has battling to secure stronger footing in Libya, has repeatedly warned that Tunisia is next in its plan for an expanded, self-declared Islamic caliphate.