THE radical Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack on a famed Tunis museum that left 23 people dead and scores of tourists wounded, and up-ended the country’s struggling tourism industry. 
 
Defying the extremists, hundreds of Tunisians rallied yesterday at the National Bardo Museum, the site of the attack, stepping around trails of blood and broken glass to proclaim their solidarity with the victims and with Tunisia’s fledgling democracy. One person carried a sign saying “Tunisia is bloodied but still standing.”

Tunisian security forces arrested nine people, five with alleged direct connections to Wednesday’s attack by two gunmen who were later slain by police, the president’s office said. The other four suspects arrested in the central part of the country were part of a cell supporting those involved in the attack, the statement said.

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Prime Minister Habib Essid told France’s RTL radio that Tunisia was working with other countries to learn more about the slain attackers, identified as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui. He said Laabidi had been flagged to the intelligence agency, although not for “anything special.”

The attack was the worst at a tourist site in Tunisia in more than a decade and prompted a leading Italian cruise ship line to announce it was cancelling all stops in the North African nation indefinitely.

The deaths of so many tourists will create massive trouble for Tunisia’s tourism industry, which attracts thousands of foreigners every year to the country’s Mediterranean beaches, desert oases and ancient Roman ruins — and which had just started to recover after years of decline. Two major cruise ships whose passengers were among the victims quickly left the port of Tunis early Thursday, leaving behind grieving family members and slain passengers.

Razor wire ringed the museum entrance Thursday and security forces guarded major thoroughfares in Tunis, the capital.

Culture Minister Latifa Lakhdar gave a defiant press conference in the museum, where blood trails still stained the ground.

“They are targeting knowledge. They are targeting science. They are targeting reason. They are targeting history. They are targeting memory, because all these things mean nothing in their eyes,” she told reporters. “There is only their reactionary, very backward and sclerotic ideology.”

Later in the afternoon, authorities opened the gates of the museum for a rally in defiance of the bloodshed. About 500 people held a moment of silence amid the shattered glass before singing Tunisia’s national anthem.

Participants included black-robed judges and lawyers, families with children and teenagers swathed in the red-and-white Tunisian flag. Many also carried bouquets of flowers for the victims.

Tunisians also attended the funeral of security force member Aymen Morjen, one of the victims.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in an audio and written statement on jihadi forums and described the museum housing Roman artefacts as a “den of infidels and vice.” It celebrated the two attackers as “knights” armed with assault rifles and grenades and promised further strikes.

Tunisia has faced scattered attacks by extremists for the past several years, though nothing on this scale. None of the country’s main militant groups had previously pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Geoff Porter, a North Africa security analyst, said it was likely the IS group had perhaps inspired the operation but not actually planned it.

“I think it’s probably taking credit for something it may not have played a role in,” he told the AP.

According to survivors and witnesses, two or more gunmen attacked the museum wielding assault rifles and began gunning down tourists in front of a row of about 10 buses. The attackers then charged inside to take hostages before being killed in a firefight with security forces.

Tourist Bruna Scherini described a scene of panic when shots rang out as museum-goers were admiring the Bardo’s renowned Roman-era mosaics.

“Suddenly we started to hear the gunshots so we all tried to escape and all of us tried to save ourselves as best we could,” she told Sky TG24 from her hospital bed. “We tried to hide behind the exhibits and in the corners where there was a little hiding place.”

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................Culture Minister Latifa Lakhdar gave a defiant press conference in the museum, where blood trails still stained the ground.

“They are targeting knowledge. They are targeting science. They are targeting reason. They are targeting history. They are targeting memory, because all these things mean nothing in their eyes,” she told reporters. “There is only their reactionary, very backward and sclerotic ideology.”.............

..............The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in an audio and written statement on jihadi forums and described the museum housing Roman artefacts as a “den of infidels and vice.” It celebrated the two attackers as “knights” armed with assault rifles and grenades and promised further strikes........

...............“This new act of barbarity sounds an alarm,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. “It announces that the world has changed.”...........

Quote:


islam has never changed.
it is a death cult that should be deported from our shores.

polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 20^th, 2015 at 2:46pm:

Guess the religion of the people who are murderously resisting and sabotaging Tunisian democracy.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Mar 20^th, 2015 at 6:49pm:

Islamophobe!!! How dare you?!?
I-slam has nuffin' to do wiv nuffin' and you are an Islamophobe if you say otherwise.


The Islamic motivatrions of Muslim terrorists must NOT be identified as such under any circumstances because that removes the VICTIMHOOD status from Muslims and we cant have that.

Holding Muslims responsible for what is done in the name of Islam is the sign of the worst Islamophobia and we can't have that.



Muslims being responsible for Islam is a colonial, oppressive ruse to snare Muslims into a guilty position, don't you know. 


The very idea of free and self-directed agency is anathema to Islam where Allah, like an Oriental potentate, intervenes in the world as randomly as he pleases. Insh'allah means just that - 'whatever'.

Insh'allah = whatever.

polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 20^th, 2015 at 2:46pm:

Guess the religion of the people who are murderously resisting and sabotaging Tunisian democracy.

Soren wrote on Mar 20^th, 2015 at 6:46pm:


Guess the religion of the people who just created the democracy and who have so successfully resisted the terrorists?

Your logic fails.