UK warns of more Tunisia resort attacks

Govt set to ramp up security

Britain says Islamist militants may launch further attacks on tourist resorts in Tunisia after a gunman killed 39 people, including at least 15 Britons, in the worst assault of its kind in modern Tunisian history.

Attacks may be carried out by “individuals who are unknown to the authorities and whose actions are inspired by terrorist groups via social media”, the foreign office said in updated travel advice on its website late on Saturday.

UK home secretary Theresa May, the interior minister, said she would chair a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency response committee on Sunday to ensure the government’s response to events in Tunisia was adequate. She said she had not seen evidence Islamist militants had specifically targeted British tourists in Friday’s attack in the Tunisian resort of Sousse.

Britain’s defence secretary Michael Fallon and foreign secretary Philip Hammond, writing in separate Sunday newspapers, said the Tunisian murders would inform Britain’s defence and security in 2015 and stiffen London’s resolve to tackle what they described as the poisonous narrative of Islamist extremism. Hundreds of armed police patrolled the streets of Tunisia’s beach resorts on Sunday and the government said it will deploy hundreds more inside hotels after the Islamist militant attack.

Thousands of tourists have left Tunisia since Friday’s attack, which has shocked the North African country that relies heavily on tourism for jobs and foreign currency revenues.

“We are going to deploy 1,000 armed police to protect hotels and tourists,” Tunisian interior minister Najem Gharsalli told reporters late on Saturday night. The tourism minister has described the Sousse attack as a catastrophe for the industry, which accounts for about seven per cent of the country's gross domestic product.

“Germans, French and British officials informed us they would not prevent tourists from coming to Tunisia, but they want to participate in the investigation and to see clear security decisions,” tourism minister, Salma Loumi, said on Sunday.