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Tunisian policeman dies after Takfiri stabbing attack

Tunisian forensic police check the scene of an attack on two traffic policemen in Tunis on November 1, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

A Tunisian traffic policeman has passed away after being stabbed in an attack by a Takfiri terrorist in the capital Tunis on Wednesday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Yasser Mesbah said on Thursday that Major Riadh Barrouta succumbed to a neck wound inflicted on the commander by Zied Ben Salem Gharbi.

Captain Mohamed Aidi was also wounded in the Wednesday stabbing attack which was carried out outside the parliament in a busy section of the capital city.

Prosecutors said Gharbi, who was 24 or 25 years old, had been an unemployed computer science graduate who had adopted extremist views and "intended to join terrorist groups" in neighboring Libya.

They said that he appeared not to be linked to any cell, however, and carried out the lone wolf attack on his own.

A spokesman for the prosecutors' office said on Thursday that Gharbi would be tried in an anti-terrorist court on Friday.

Tunisian security forces have been subject to numerous attacks in past years which have left more than 100 soldiers and policemen dead.

A state of emergency has been put in place in Tunisia since November 2015, after 12 presidential guards were killed in an attack in the capital.

This image shows bystanders at the scene of an attack on two traffic policemen in Tunis on November 1, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

In that year, Daesh militants carried out a deadly terrorist attack at the famed National Bardo Museum near the parliament, which left 21 foreign tourists and a policeman dead.

In June the same year, Daesh militants attacked the coastal holiday resort of Sousse, killing 38 foreign tourists, 30 of them from the UK.


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