Tunisia arrests 4 family members of museum assailant
PUBLISHED ONMarch 20, 2015 12:02 PM
IBRAHIM ZAHAR, Tunisia - Four relatives of an assailant killed in the deadly attack on the Bardo museum in the Tunisian capital have been arrested, the family and police said Friday.
The sources told AFP that two brothers of the Khachnaoui family, their sister and father were arrested Wednesday night in Kasserine near the border with Algeria, where the family has a small farm.
Prime Minister Habib Essid, hours after Wednesday's attack, identified one of the two attackers killed as Hatem Khachnaoui.
But police sources in his home village of Ibrahim Zahar, southwest Tunisia, said his first name was in fact Jabeur.
On Thursday, the presidency announced the arrests of "four people directly linked to the (terrorist) operation and five suspected of having ties to the cell".
The two gunmen who killed 21 people - all but one of them foreign tourists - at Tunisia's national museum trained at a militant camp in Libya, Secretary of State for Security Rafik Chelly said Friday.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack.