Arrests Made in Attack on Tunisian Museum

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/world/africa/arrests-made-in-attack-on-tunisian-museum.html

Version 0 of 1.

TUNIS — The Tunisian authorities have arrested more than 20 people in the investigation into Wednesday’s attack at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis, including 10 the authorities say were directly tied to the deadly assault, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior said Saturday.

Some of those detained are relatives of the two gunmen who opened fire in the museum, killing 20 foreign tourists and three Tunisians before being shot dead by security forces.

The government and security forces have acted rapidly to investigate the attack and to present a determined and united front against terrorism, calling on all Tunisians and other countries to show solidarity. “There is a large-scale campaign against the extremists,” the ministry’s spokesman, Mohamed Ali Aroui, told news agencies.

Yet legislators and members of the public are already raising questions about security failures that allowed the gunmen to gain access to the museum so easily.

The president of the Parliament, Mohamed Ennaceur, said security was light at the entrance of the compound that houses the national museum and Parliament’s offices and also offers access to a mosque opposite the museum. Custom demands that people have free access to a place of prayer, Mr. Ennaceur added.

But the deputy speaker of the Parliament, Abdelfattah Mourou, a member of the Islamist party Ennahda, said he had conducted his own investigation and found that the four police officers assigned to the compound at the time of the attack were away from their posts. Three were on a break, drinking coffee and eating a snack, and one had not turned up for work, Mr. Mourou told Agence France-Presse.

“It’s a big failure,” he said. Lawmakers discussed the issue of security with the police and the army on Tuesday, only to be told that they lacked equipment, Mr. Mourou added.

The government has said both gunmen returned to Tunisia in recent months after receiving training in militant camps in Libya. Terrorist training camps have proliferated in Libya since militia groups there overthrew Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011 and then embarked on a destructive struggle for power.

The gunmen managed to enter the compound with automatic rifles, grenades and a bag of explosives that the police later discovered in the museum. Police officers at the scene said the gunmen had slipped past the entrance gate as several big tourist buses entered the compound. A witness said he had seen the men opening their bags and taking out assault weapons, news agencies reported.

The gunmen immediately opened fire on tourists as they were getting off the buses, police officers at the scene said. The attackers ran toward the Parliament building and threw three grenades at guards near the building. The assailants then turned back and ran into the museum, where they opened fire in several rooms and on a balcony.

A Belgian tourist, Gabriel Verfaillie, 61, said he had seen two gunmen shoot at his group. He was shot in the legs as he fled. One of the gunmen pursued members of the group and fired from close range as they tried to hide on a balcony.

“They were very determined in their attitude,” Mr. Verfaillie said. “They were young. It was carnage.”