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TUNIS, June 12, 2012 (AFP)
Tunisian police arrested 46 people including Islamist hardliners over a series of attacks on government offices and clashes with security forces overnight, the interior ministry said Tuesday.
Police fired tear gas to repel the attacks by a mixed group of ultra-conservative Salafists and other attackers, who set fire to and pillaged a local court in west Tunis and attacked several police stations in the north of the capital, ministry spokesman Khaled Tarrouche said.
Seven officers were slightly injured in the clashes, he added.
“The fact that the violence erupted in several places at the same time makes us think that it was organised,” said Tarrouche, adding that an investigation has been launched.
He added that security forces have been deployed to all the sites concerned and “will not allow any act of violence.”
At Essijoumi in west Tunis, the court prosecutor’s office was burnt down while the wreckage of a civil protection truck remained in the middle of the road early Tuesday.
Other areas including Ettadhamen and Intilaka in the west of the city were also hit by the violence.
In the northern suburb of La Marsa, attackers tried to enter a gallery where several paintings had been slashed a day ago by Islamists.
The Salafists have in recent weeks intensified their violence in Tunisia, with some armed with clubs and swords burning down the shops of alcohol vendors who refused to close.
Moderate Tunisians have also expressed deep concern over the rising power of the radical Salafists since the revolution that toppled the regime of Zinedine El Abidine Ben Ali.
The Salafist movement comprises several branches. Some adherents focus strictly on religion, some are politicians and some are jihadists who see violence as a legitimate means to impose their faith.
Researchers put Salafist numbers in Tunisia at around 10,000.
