Tunisia pledges tough security measures after 'worst ever' terror attack

Sousse, Tunisia, Jun 28: Tunisia's prime minister announced on Saturday a string of new security measures including closing renegade mosques and calling up army reservists as thousands of tourists left the North African country in wake of its worst terrorist attack ever.

Tourists crowded into the airport at Hammamet near the coastal city of Sousse where a young man dressed in shorts yesterday pulled an assault rifle out of his beach umbrella and killed 38 people, mostly tourists many of whom were tourists.

"The fight against terrorism is a national responsibility," visibly exhausted Prime Minister Habib Essid said at a news conference in Tunis.

"We are at war against terrorism which represents a serious danger to national unity during this delicate period that the nation is going through."

The attack came the same day that a suicide bomber killed 27 people in a Shiite mosque in Kuwait and a man in France ran his truck into a warehouse and hung his employer's severed head on the gate.

Essid announced the call-up of army reservists and said they would be deployed in tourist sites around the country and inside hotels, while he called on the hotels themselves to do more to enforce security.

He also said that political parties and associations espousing radical ideas with suspicious funding would be closed down and around 80 mosques known for extremist preaching would be shut.

AP