Tunis – Police killed two suspected jihadi terrorists and seized guns and a suicide belt in a raid Wednesday in the western region of Kasserine, Tunisia’s interior ministry said.
The two men were known to police and had been on a terrorist wanted list before dying in an hours-long shootout that lasted from Tuesday into early Wednesday.
The ministry said in a statement the two men had been planning a terrorist attack in the region and called the mission a “preventative assault.”
One other civilian was killed in the gun battle after being struck by a stray bullet fired by one of the jihadists, police said.
The raid comes just two days after landmines and rockets were used to ambush a military patrol in a remote mountain area in nearby Kasserine. Three soldiers were killed and eight more wounded in the ambush, which was claimed by the al-Qaida linked group Okba Ibn Nafaa.
With MAP
