Tunisia was not prepared for beach massacre

Tunisia's president has admitted security services were not prepared for last week's jihadist beach massacre, as authorities warned the country is likely to lose more than half-a-billion dollars in tourism revenues.

Friday's carnage -- which saw a jihadist gunman kill 38 people, mostly British holidaymakers, at a seaside resort -- was the second attack on tourists in Tunisia claimed by Daesh group in just three months.

President Beji Caid Essebsi said security had been boosted in other areas for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which has seen Islamist violence in previous years, but that authorities had not expected beaches to be a target.

"It is true that we were surprised by this incident. Arrangements were made for the month of Ramadan, but they never thought (measures) had to be taken on the beaches," Essebsi said in an interview with French radio broadcast on Tuesday.

On Friday a Tunisian identified as 23-year-old Seifeddine Rezgui pulled a Kalashnikov assault rifle from inside a beach umbrella and went on a bloody rampage at the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba hotel in Port El Kantaoui near Sousse, south of the capital Tunis.

Daesh, which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria, swiftly claimed the attack.

The jihadist group had also claimed responsibility for killing 21 tourists and a Tunisian policeman at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis in March.

After the Bardo museum attack, jihadists threatened new violence, with Daesh sympathisers tweeting under the hashtag #IWillComeToTunisiaThisSummer.

"It's not a perfect system," Essebsi told Europe 1 radio. "If there were failings, disciplinary action will be taken immediately."

Tunisia vowed new security measures in the wake of the attack and on Wednesday is to deploy 1,000 armed officers to reinforce tourism police along its Mediterranean coastline.

- Warning of tourism 'collapse' -

There were no signs yet of increased security at the scene of the attack, with no police visible at the hotel or in the surrounding area, an AFP journalist said.

Police and vehicles that had deployed on Monday during a visit by the interior ministers of Britain, France and Germany were gone by Tuesday morning.

Several witnesses to the attack said it lasted more than 30 minutes before the gunman was shot dead. Critics have accused Tunisian security forces of failing to respond in time, but officials say they were on the scene within minutes.

Thousands of frightened tourists have fled Tunisia since Friday, including at least 4,000 who were flown home to Britain, the country hardest hit.

Tunisian health authorities have so far identified 25 of the bodies and British Home Secretary Theresa May told reporters as she visited Port El Kantaoui that 18 of the dead were confirmed as Britons.

Officials in London have said the number of British victims could rise to at least 30 after formal identification procedures are complete.

The attack was Britain's worst loss of life in a jihadist attack since the July 2005 London bombings and prompted a call from Prime Minister David Cameron for increased efforts to fight extremism.

Tunisia's tourism industry was already suffering from the political upheaval that followed the 2011 overthrow of ex-dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and previous jihadist attacks.

But officials said Friday's massacre may do the most damage yet.

"We can count, at least, with regards to the impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), on a loss of earnings of a billion dinars ($515 million/460 million euros)," Tourism Minister Selma Elloumi Rekik told reporters late Monday.

"I think that's just the minimum, but it's still an estimate."

Tourism accounts for seven percent of Tunisia's GDP and employs some 400,000 people.

"If tourism collapses... the economy falls apart," Elloumi warned, announcing government plans to provide exceptional state loans to help tourism businesses this year and next.

France's travel agency union said Monday that 80 percent of package holidays booked for the month of July had been cancelled, with customers rushing to other destinations.
Source: AFP