IS said a Tunisian, Abou Abdallah al-Tounissi, had boarded a bus wearing an explosives belt only a few hundred metres (yards) from the interior ministry as it picked up guards on their way to work Tuesday.
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Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi is holding an emergency meeting Wednesday with his security council a day after an explosion killed at least 12 people in the country’s capital. Thirteen people were killed in the attack, which the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for.
In March, three people attacked the Bardo National Museum in central Tunis, killing 22 people, while in June a lone gunman killed 38 people, 30 of them British tourists, at a tourist resort near Sousse.
The statement said a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vest on the bus. The Confederation Cup is Africa’s second biggest club competition behind the Champions League.
The latest on an explosion that targeted a bus carrying Tunisian presidential guards in the capital.
It’s been a particularly bloody year for the country, which is battling a surge of extremist violence.
Officials have repeatedly said the chaos in Libya is spilling across the border, undermining efforts to revive an economy where high unemployment has been partly blamed for stoking sporadic unrest since the ouster of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
The National Security Council of Tunisia also belatedly approved the release of money in a counterterrorism fund that would finance relief projects in the most disadvantaged regions of the country, which is wedged between Libya to the east and Algeria on the west.
A year ago, a bus carrying troops was attacked by two armed men in north-west Tunisia, according to the defence ministry.
Fifteen people were killed in Tuesday’s blast, an official in the Prime Minister’s office old CNN.
ISIS also claimed responsibility for both those attacks.
While only a small fraction of Tunisians are believed to support the Iraq and Syria based militant group, the fact that hundreds of Tunisians have returned from Syria and Iraq has been a source of concern for law enforcement in the country.
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CNN’s Sara Sidner and Houda Zaghdoudi reported from Tunis, and CNN’s Greg Botelho reported and wrote from Atlanta.
