A bomb exploded underneath a car yesterday in front of a Tunis port police station causing no injuries, but representing a dangerous escalation in the country’s political crisis.
The blast, in the Tunis port area of La Goulette, came on the day assassinated leftist politician Mohammed Brahmi was set to be buried.
“As we were leaving the station for a routine patrol, we saw a suspicious package under the car,” police officer Mourad Mliki said. “We went back to the station to tell our superiors and there was a huge explosion — it was set off remotely.”
The blast shattered windows and damaged nearby cars. In the aftermath police flooded the neighborhood, setting up checkpoints.
“The explosion was so strong it was like an earthquake,” said Walid Khammar, a fish seller living near the police station.
His car was damaged by the blast which shattered windows in nearby buildings.
The blast comes the day after the government announced that an al-Qaeda-linked cell was behind Thursday’s assassination.
The Tunisian Ministry of the Interior, citing physical evidence and witnesses, said on Friday that Brahmi’s assassin was Boubakr Hakim, a known militant and weapons smuggler who was part of the same jihadist cell that murdered opposition politician Chokri Belaid in February.
Hakim allegedly shot Brahmi 14 times outside his home on Thursday in full view of his family with the same 9mm semiautomatic handgun used to kill Belaid, before he sped away on the back of a moped.
The assassination has rocked the country and provoked anti-government demonstrations by protesters holding the moderate Islamists elected in 2011 responsible for the lack of security in the country.
Tunisians overthrew former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, inspiring the pro-democracy uprisings of the Arab Spring across the region. The long-repressed moderate Islamist Ennahda Party dominated subsequent elections and now rules in coalition with two secular parties.
With two political assassinations in less than six months and a faltering economy, the opposition says the government has lost its legitimacy and is demanding a new national salvation government to run the country.
About 42 members of opposition parties announced late on Friday their withdrawal from the 217-member elected assembly charged with completing the countries new constitution.
The opposition accuses Ennahda of turning a blind eye to the rise of ultraconservative Islamist movements known as Salafis, following the revolution — especially those willing to use violence to push their views.
Tunis had said it did not want to replicate Ali’s repressive anti-Islamist policies, but when thousands of salafis attacked the US embassy in Tunisia in September over an anti-Islamic film produced in the US., the government cracked down on the movement.
In April, soldiers searching a mountainous region near the Algerian border set off a roadside bomb, causing severe injuries and sparking a search of the region that revealed the remains of training camps and more hidden explosives.
Sandwiched between Algeria and Libya, both home to armed extremists, Tunisia’s transition to democracy has been threatened by armed militants and weapons flowing into the country.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
RSS