Tunis – A man lunged at Tunisian police with an axe and a knife in central Tunis on Friday before officers shot and wounded him with rubber-tipped bullets, witnesses and police said.
Video footage taken by witnesses showed the bearded man brandishing an axe outside the interior ministry in the central Habib Bourguiba Avenue.
Several passers-by intervene, throwing metal barriers in his path, before a police officer shoots him twice and he falls to the ground.
A police officer at the site said the “extremist” had been trying to attack security forces outside the heavily guarded ministry, which is surrounded by portable metal barriers.
“He had a knife in one hand and an axe in the other and was running towards the ministry shouting ‘Allahu akbar (God is greatest)’,” the officer said.
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The interior ministry did not make any immediate official comment.
Lotfi, who witnessed the incident, said police “threw barriers at him but he continued to run and threaten police with his knife and his axe”.
Members of the public can be heard in video footage of the incident shouting at police to shoot the man.
A police officer told AFP the man had been shot with rubber-tipped bullets and taken to hospital.
Tunisia saw several deadly jihadist attacks following its 2011 revolution that overthrew longtime dictator Zine El Abidine ben Ali, notably in 2015 when 38 people, mostly Britons, were killed in a beachside shooting rampage.
The last deadly attack took place in September last year, when attackers with knives killed a Tunisian National Guard officer and wounded another Sunday before three assailants were later shot dead in a firefight.
Friday’s incident comes four months after President Kais Saied seized far-reaching powers amid a deepening economic and political crisis.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Getty Images
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