Twelve held in connection with shootings on Tunisia beach

The attack was Tunisia’s deadliest ever, and threatened to be a devastating blow to the country’s tourism sector.

According to Tunisian officials, he trained at a Libyan jihadist camp at the same time as the two gunmen who attacked the Bardo museum in Tunis in March, killing 22 people.

Asked why it had taken so long to identify victims, Aidi said that he didn’t think it had taken a long time and that authorities had to be precise and follow worldwide procedures.

Jendoubi said 10 United Kingdom investigators were assisting with the investigation, the AFP news agency reports.

The minister also urged greater worldwide terrorism cooperation in a “war… between democratic Tunisia and an worldwide jihadi movement”.

Jihadist groups have repeatedly attacked Tunisian security forces since the overthrow of dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.

More than 3,000 Tunisians have left to fight for Islamic State and other groups in Iraq, Syria and in Libya, where a conflict between two rival governments has allowed Islamist militants to seek refuge and gain ground. Security officials “are busy deploying at Hammamet”, a seaside resort in the south of Tunis, he added.

“We had agreed to protect the beaches”.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told MPs on Wednesday that the confirmed number of Britons killed in the attack was now 27.

Mr Heathcote, 52, from Felixstowe, Suffolk, was celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary with wife Allison, 48, who was seriously injured in the attack and has been flown back to Britain by the RAF for treatment.

Friday marks a week since the attack, and a minute’s remembrance will be held at noon across the United Kingdom as well as in British embassies and posts around the world.

He said 18 were gunned down on the beach, while five bodies were found near the pool and the others elsewhere.

Security was heightened across tourist sites and elsewhere since the start of Ramadan, Sebsi said, but he admitted the authorities “could never have expected this [attack] to happen on the beach”.

Among repeated warnings to tourists on social media was one, just days after the Bardo attack, in which someone on an Isis-linked account tweeted “I will come to Tunisia this summer”, using the national tourist board’s slogan, alongside an image of a masked gunman holding two Kalashnikovs.

As the C-17 military transport aircraft touched down at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire shortly before 3pm yesterday afternoon, Suzanne Richards – whose son, brother, and father were all killed in the attack – urged the nation to “fight this evil together”.