CAIRO — Gunmen in military uniforms attacked an art museum in downtown Tunis on Wednesday, killing eight people and taking others hostage, a spokesman for the interior ministry said.
Early reports said that those killed included seven foreign visitors and one Tunisian, and that there were two or three gunmen. Tunisian state media outlets said that the gunmen were holding ten hostages, and that as many as fifteen people had been injured.
The attack reportedly began around noon or shortly after, at a time when hundreds of visitors were on their way into the museum. Interior ministry officials said the gunmen were armed with grenades and assault riffles.
Helicopters buzzed over the area in the afternoon, and Tunisian state television said they were evacuating people from the area, possible including those injured in the attack.
The site of the attack, the National Bardo Museum, is near the national Parliament in downtown Tunis. By early afternoon, the Parliament building had been evacuated, and police officers surrounded the area in a standoff with the gunmen.
The identity and motivation of the attackers were not immediately clear.
Officials said it was possible that the Parliament, rather than the museum, was the original intended target of the attack; some reports said that legislators were discussing an antiterrorism law on Wednesday.
Tunisia was the country where the Arab Spring revolts against autocratic rule began four years ago.
Of all the countries affected, Tunisia has made the most successful transition toward democracy, recently completing presidential and parliamentary elections and a peaceful rotation of political power. Security forces have struggled against occasional attacks by Islamic extremists, but they have usually occurred in mountainous areas far from the capital.
Recruiters for the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, have sought to take advantage of the new level of freedom after the revolution, as well as the economic disruptions, high youth unemployment and resentment of the country’s often abusive police force, which is left over from the old authoritarian order. Those factors have helped make Tunisia one of the biggest sources of foreign fighters joining the Islamic State’s fight in Syria and Iraq.
新华网突尼斯３月１８日电（记者陈斌杰）当地时间１８日中午，位于突尼斯首都突尼斯西郊的议会大厦附近发生一起武装袭击事件，已造成至少８名游客死亡。
突尼斯内政部发言人阿鲁因说，８名游客中，一人为突尼斯人，另外７人的国籍暂时无法确认。
据消息人士说，３名穿着制服的武装分子当天进入议会大厦附近的巴尔杜博物馆里发动袭击，伴有枪声，随后绑架数名正在博物馆参观的西方游客。
新华社记者在议会大厦附近看到，大批突尼斯军警已赶赴现场，该区域已被封闭。消息人士说，武装分子目前处于军警的包围之中。