Suicide bomber on a motorcycle attacks the US embassy in Tunisia

Five Tunisian police officers were wounded this morning after a motorbike-riding suicide bomber blew himself up outside the US Embassy in the capital.

The assailant tried to force through the entrance but was blocked by officers guarding the building in the Berges du Lac district of Tunis, a police official said.

‘The operation was doomed to fail,’ he said. The attacker had been riding on a motorcycle before attempting his vicious rush on the US consulate.

There was a scorched motorbike and a damaged police vehicle a few feet from the embassy’s main gate and stray limbs lay in pools of blood on the road. Last summer, ISIS claimed responsibility for three blasts in the city, Friday morning’s attack marking the worst since those terrorist atrocities.

A helicopter whirled overhead and large numbers of police and forensics officers gathered at the scene. The explosion caused panic among pedestrians near the embassy, images shared online showed.

‘We heard a very powerful explosion… we saw the remains of the terrorist lying on the ground after he went on the motorbike towards the police, some of whom were wounded,’ said Amira, a shopkeeper in the area.

Embassy officials confirmed the attack in a tweet on its official Twitter feed, and urged people to avoid the area. Radio Mosaique, a local radio station, reported that the attacker had injured five police officers when blowing himself up. The station also reported that there may have been a second perpetrator.

Sirens could be heard on the major highway linking the Lac district, where the embassy is located, with Tunis and suburbs in the north. Last summer, Islamic State said it was behind three militant blasts in the capital, including one near the French embassy that killed a policeman and another that wounded five people during a security operation to detain a suspect.

Tunisia’s critical tourism sector is highly vulnerable to militant incidents and was devastated after two major attacks in 2015, which killed scores of visitors at a beach resort and a popular museum.

Diplomats who have worked with Tunisia on its security capacity say it has grown more effective in preventing and responding to militant attacks in recent years.

Source: Daily Mail