1 Dead, 11 Hurt as Tunisia Police Clash with Islamist Protesters
Clashes broke out between radical Islamists and police on Sunday after Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia told its followers to gather "in large numbers" near Tunis for its annual congress, defying a government ban.
Hundreds of Salafists erected barricades in the streets of Ettadhamen, a poor neighborhood 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Tunis, and hurled rocks at police who responded with tear gas, Agence France Presse reported.
The security forces used armored cars and bulldozers to destroy the barricades and gain access to Ettadhamen, which is considered a stronghold of the Salafist movement in conflict with the government.
The Islamists retreated to the neighboring district of Intilaka where clashes continued, with the police finally appearing to take control.
A protester was hit by gunfire and killed in the capital, a hospital official said.
Mounira Ben Ghazi, a senior supervisor at Mongi Slim hospital, named the dead man as Moez Dahmani, in comments made to Express-FM radio station.
Dahmani, who was born in 1986, died of gunshot wounds, Ben Ghazi said.
An interior ministry spokesman confirmed the death of a protester in comments broadcast on Hannibal TV but gave no further details.
Earlier the interior ministry said 11 policemen and three protesters were wounded in clashes in a Tunis suburb.
Later on Sunday, Prime Minister Ali Larayedh accused Ansar al-Sharia of being "involved in terrorism".
"Ansar al-Sharia is an illegal organization... it has ties to and is involved in terrorism," Larayedh told state television.
One policeman was said to be in serious condition. An officer at the scene earlier said there were five injuries among police ranks.
Ansar al-Sharia had planned to hold Sunday its annual congress in the central city of Kairouan, the country's religious capital, but the government banned the meeting and the Islamists decided to move it to Ettadhamen.
Salafists advocate an ultra-conservative brand of Sunni Islam, and Ansar al-Sharia does not recognize the authority of the state.
"We consider that our congress was held in Ettadhamen," Ansar al-Sharia official Sami Essid told Agence France Presse.
He was speaking after the hardline Islamist group called on its followers "to gather in large numbers" in the Tunis suburb, in a message posted on its Facebook page.
In Kairouan there were only brief clashes during which the security forces fired tear gas at stone-throwing Salafists who shouted insults at the police.
The Salafists had insisted all week they would hold their third annual congress despite the ban, and warned they would hold authorities responsible for any violence, raising fears of a bloody showdown.
AFP and Tunisian media reported the arrests of Salafist militants in Kairouan and other cities, with Ansar al-Sharia's spokesman Seifeddine Rais arrested at dawn on Sunday, according to a police source.
A resident of Ettadhamen said hundreds of Ansar al-Sharia supporters poured into the district, a Salafist stronghold, some armed with sticks and knives and waving the black flag of their movement.
In the marketplace they chanted "we are going to Ettadhamen."
Tunisia has been rocked by attacks blamed on militant Islamists since the uprising that toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Ansar al-Sharia is considered the most radical of the extremist groups that emerged after the 2011 revolution.
The government, led by moderate Islamist party Ennahda, has hardened its stance towards the extremists in recent months, announcing in early May that two groups the army is pursuing in the western region bordering Algeria are linked to al-Qaida.
A top al-Qaida chief urged Tunisia's Salafists to shun government provocation in order not to lose public support, the U.S.-based SITE monitoring service said on Sunday.
"Don't you ever be provoked by the regime and its barbarism to do rash acts that might spoil your blessed popular embrace," said Abu Yahya al-Shanqiti, a member of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb's sharia committee, was quoted as saying.
Confirming its decision to ban Sunday's meeting, the interior ministry said last week that it posed a threat to public order.
Ennahda has been strongly criticized since coming to power in late 2011 for being too lenient towards the Salafists and for failing to stop them carrying out attacks around the country, notably one on the U.S. embassy in September that left four Islamists dead.
Ansar al-Sharia's fugitive leader, Saif Allah Bin Hussein, a former al-Qaida fighter in Afghanistan, warned earlier this month that he would wage war against the government, accusing it of policies in breach of Islam.
Source: Agence France Presse
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