Tunisia PM admits police took too long to react to attack

Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid has told the BBC that police took too long to react to last week’s jihadist attack that killed 38 people, mostly Britons.

Queen Elizabeth II and British Prime Minister David Cameron were among those who observed a minute’s silence at noon Friday, a week after the attack.

All of the British people killed in Friday’s attack were British customers of Thomson and First Choice.

Cheshire East Council also held a minute’s silence and lowered its flag in remembrance of the victims of the terror attack in Tunisia.

Wearing the club’s red shirt with his arm around his mother, Owen bowed his head as he observed for the sombre moment at the club’s Banks’s Stadium, where a carpet of flowers, Walsall flags and shirts have been left in tribute to the family.

The Islamic State terrorist group, which is active in Syria and Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The queen and her husband Prince Philip joined in the silence during a visit to Strathclyde University in Glasgow, while Cameron marked the moment in his Witney constituency northwest of London.

He said the investigation “has allowed us to discover the network behind the operation in Sousse“.

The killings were the worst-ever massacre in Tunisia, which fears massive damage to its tourism industry.

At the beach in Sousse where the tourists’ blood was spilled, Britain’s ambassador Hamish Cowell was among those honouring all 38 victims of last week’s massacre, laying a wreath at the site.

The sector accounts for about seven percent of gross domestic product in a country already suffering from the upheaval that followed the 2011 overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Wimbledon’s grounds fell silent, matches started at 12.15pm rather than the usual 11.30am to allow players, staff and fans to take part.

The final five will be returned on Saturday.

Tunisian authorities identified the perpetrator of the attack as Seifeddin Rezgui, a Tunisian student, who was killed by police.

Coroner Chinyere Inyama is expected to open and adjourn the hearings in which a headline cause of death will be confirmed and the bodies will be released to families.

Among his victims were 30 British nationals, with three Irish citizens, two Germans, a Belgian, a Portuguese and a Russian also perishing in the attack.

The group that planned this attack was also behind the deadly shootings in the Bardo Museum in Tunis in March, Mr Essid added.

In the past four years, dozens of police and soldiers have been killed in Tunisia in clashes and ambushes attributed to militants – mainly in the western Chaambi Mountains.