TUNIS: A Tunisian policeman died Thursday a day after he was stabbed by an Islamist extremist outside parliament in a bustling part of the capital Tunis, the authorities said.
Commander Riadh Barrouta, who was knifed in the neck during the attack on Wednesday, “has died,” interior ministry spokesman Yasser Mesbah said.
A second officer was lightly wounded in the forehead in the early morning assault before the attacker in his mid-20s was quickly arrested.
In the wake of the incident the interior ministry said the assailant had confessed to having adopted an “extremist” ideology three years ago.
“Killing them (police), he believes, is a form of jihad,” it said.
Prosecutors on Thursday said the man — an unemployed computer science graduate born in 1992 — appeared to be a lonewolf who did not belong to any cell, but “intended to join terrorist groups” in neighboring Libya.
The attacker, who comes from a suburb of Tunis, would be taken before anti-terrorist prosecutors on Friday, said Sofiene Sliti, a spokesman for the prosecutors’ office.
Since its 2011 revolution, which sparked the Arab Spring, Tunisia’s security forces have faced a series of jihadist attacks that have claimed the lives of more than 100 soldiers and police.
Wednesday’s attack happened next door to the famed National Bardo Museum that was the site of a deadly Daesh group attack in 2015 that killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman.
In June the same year, 38 foreign tourists, including 30 from Britain, lost their lives in an IS attack in the coastal holiday resort of Sousse.
Tunisia has been under a state of emergency since November 2015, after another attack killed 12 presidential guards in the heart of the capital.
Tunisian policeman dies after knife attack outside parliament
Tunisian policeman dies after knife attack outside parliament
Iraq majority bloc backs Nouri al-Maliki as next PM: statement
- The Coordination Framework said that it “decided, by majority vote, to nominate” Al-Maliki for the position
- The statement spoke of Al-Maliki’s “political and administrative experience and his record in running the state“
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s main Shiite alliance, which holds a parliamentary majority, endorsed on Saturday former prime minister and powerbroker Nouri Al-Maliki as the country’s next premier.
The Coordination Framework, an alliance of Shiite factions with varying links to Iran, said in a statement that it “decided, by majority vote, to nominate” Al-Maliki for the position “as the candidate of the largest parliamentary bloc.”
The statement spoke of Al-Maliki’s “political and administrative experience and his record in running the state.”
A shrewd politician, Al-Maliki, 75, has long been a central figure in Iraq’s politics and its only two-term prime minister (2006-2014) since the US invasion of 2003, which ended decades of rule by the autocratic Sunni president Saddam Hussein.
Since the invasion and by convention in Iraq, a Shiite Muslim holds the powerful post of prime minister, a Sunni is parliament speaker, and the largely ceremonial presidency goes to a Kurd. After Iraq’s November general election, the Coordination Framework, which includes Al-Maliki, formed the majority bloc.
Soon after, it held heated talks to choose the next prime minister, along with other discussions with Sunni and Kurdish parties regarding other posts.
Iraq’s parliament chose a speaker last month and should convene next to elect a new president, who will then appoint a prime minister to replace the incumbent Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani.
Al-Maliki, leader of the State of Law Coalition, remains influential in Iraqi politics despite his controversial past, including widespread accusations of corruption, stoking sectarian tensions, and failing to stop the Daesh group.
