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This Is The Second Shooting In Tunisia This Year

by Jenny Hollander

On Friday morning, at least one gunman stormed the beach of the Hotel Riu Imperial Marhaba in Sousse, Tunisia, a popular tourist destination, leaving at least two dozen people dead. The attack comes just three months after the devastating March attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, Tunisia's capital, which left 22 people dead. Although ISIS claimed to be behind the Bardo museum attack, Tunisian authorities actually believed the culprits to be members of a splinter al Qaeda group, of which police killed nine members they believed to be behind the attack. The Bardo attack sparked anti-terrorism protests in Tunisia, which has seen multiple instances of terrorist attacks; each year since 2013, the number of those killed by terrorists in the North African country has increased.

Those killed in the Bardo attack were largely foreign tourists, and although the identities of the victims of the Sousse beachfront shooting are unclear, the BBC reports that those at the beachfront were mostly guests to the hotel. Regardless, the two incidents of the last six months mark some of the deadliest in Tunisia's history. Last July, British tourists were warned against traveling to Tunisia because of what was described as a "high threat from terrorism" in the country.