Region

KUWAIT — Kuwait on Sunday identified the suicide bomber behind its worst militant attack as a young Saudi man, and said it had detained the driver of the vehicle that took him to a Shiite Muslim mosque where he killed 27 people.

The disclosure of the bomber's Saudi nationality is likely to focus the attention of authorities investigating Friday's suicide bombing on ties between Islamists in the small Gulf state and those in in its larger, more conservative neighbour.

The interior ministry named the bomber as Fahd Suliman Abdul-Muhsen Al Qabaa and said he flew into Kuwait's airport at dawn on Friday, only hours before he detonated an explosives-laden vest at Kuwait City's Imam Al Sadeq Mosque.

It was not immediately known where Qabaa had arrived from, but the timing of his arrival suggests he had a network already in place in Kuwait. The ministry said it was searching for more partners and aides in this “despicable crime”, adding Qabaa had been born in 1992, putting him in his early 20s.

Daesh’s Saudi Arabian arm claimed responsibility for the attack on the mosque, where 2,000 worshippers were praying at the time. It was one of three attacks on three continents that day apparently linked to hardline Islamists.

The attack was the most significant act of Sunni militant violence in Kuwait since 2005, when an Al Qaeda linked group calling itself the Peninsula Lions clashed with security forces in the streets of Kuwait City. Nine Islamists and four security force members were killed in the gun battles.

The bombing has sharply heightened regional security concerns because Daesh appears to be making good on its threat to step up attacks in the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

The group, seeking to expand from strongholds in Iraq and Syria, says its priority target is the Arabian peninsula and in particular Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s holiest places, from where it plans to expel Shiite Muslims.

Daesh subscribes to a puritanical school of Sunni Islam that considers Shiites as heretics.

The ministry said the driver of the Japanese-made car, who left the mosque immediately after Friday’s bombing, was an illegal resident named Abdul Rahman Sabah Aidan. The phrasing of its statement suggests Aidan is belongs to the “Bidoon”, a large underclass in Kuwait lacking citizenship and access to jobs.

‘Deviant’ idea

The interior ministry, which had earlier reported the vehicle owner’s arrest, said Aidan, 26, was found hiding in one of the houses in Al Riqqa residential area.

“Initial investigations showed that the owner of the house is a supporter of the deviant ideology,” the ministry said, employing a term often used by authorities in the Gulf Arab region to refer to hardline Islamist militants.

The owner of the house, a Kuwaiti citizen, was also detained, the ministry said.

Officials said the bombing was clearly meant to stir enmity between majority Sunnis and minority Shiites and harm the comparatively harmonious ties between the sects in Kuwait.

Shiites are between 15 and 30 per cent of the population of Kuwait, a mostly Sunni country where members of both communities live side by side with little apparent friction.

Kuwait is a conservative Muslim country where alcohol is banned, but it is less strict than Saudi Arabia on issues such as women’s rights and freedom of religion.

Kuwaitis reacted with outrage to the bombing. Some said citizens who fund Islamist armed groups fighting in Syria and Iraq were to blame for any militancy in Kuwait.

“The wrath of God will come upon ISIS [Daesh] and everyone who is supporting them and collecting funds for them under the cover of helping refugees and orphans,” wrote Hamad Al Baghli, a Kuwaiti, on Twitter.

Kuwait has been one of the biggest humanitarian donors to Syrian refugees through the United Nations, but it has also struggled to control unofficial fund-raising for opposition groups in Syria by private individuals.

Abdulrahman Al Jeeran, a parliamentarian and member of the ultra-conservative Salafi branch of Islam, told Reuters lawmakers should stop “sectarian discourse” and be prevented from using sectarian issues for electoral gains.

KHARTOUM — Twelve Sudanese medical students, most carrying Western passports, are believed to have travelled to Turkey with the intention of crossing into Syria to join Islamist militant groups, the university’s dean of students said on Sunday.

If confirmed by authorities, the group would be the second of its kind from Khartoum’s University of Medical Sciences and Technology (UMST), founded by a Sudanese Islamist lawmaker, to head to Syria this year.

“Twelve students, nine male and three female, in the faculty of medicine left for Turkey last Friday, most of them on Turkish Airlines, without the knowledge of their families,” Ahmed Babaker, UMST’s dean of students, told Reuters.

Babaker said seven carried British passports, two carried Canadian passports and one student had a US passport. Two held only Sudanese passports.

“The fact that the students travelled to Turkey indicates that they are in the direction of joining Islamist extremist groups. And the side that is closest to the Turkish border are areas under the control of Islamic State [Daesh],” he said.

Thousands of foreigners from different countries have joined the ranks of groups like Daesh in Syria and Iraq, many of them crossing through Turkey.

Their journey raises fears of additional foot soldiers or sympathisers carrying out attacks on home soil similar to those launched over the weekend by a suspected Islamist in France, and by Daesh-claimed attacks on a Shiite mosque in Kuwait and a beach resort in Tunisia.

The latest apparent influx from Sudan also raises concerns about the religious discourse that students in Sudan, which itself promotes a conservative brand of Islam, may be subjected to.

A spokeswoman from Britain’s Foreign Office in London said: “We can confirm that seven British nationals have travelled to Turkey from Sudan. We are providing consular assistance and are working closely with the Turkish police to establish their whereabouts.”

A spokesman for the British embassy in Khartoum said the embassy was aware that the seven had left on Friday.

Babaker said Turkish authorities had arrested three students at an airport in Turkey, without specifying the airport. He said one of the 12 carried a diplomatic Sudanese passport.

Sudanese officials were not available for immediate comment. Reuters was not able to reach Turkish officials for comment.

In March, a group of medical students who had studied at UMST also travelled to Turkey en route to Syria.

Babaker said the university had imposed measures after the first group left for Syria, including monitoring within the university and setting up guidance sessions for students.

This group, like the first, came from relatively well-off social backgrounds and lived most of their lives abroad. They moved back to Sudan for university studies.

“They were supposed to sit an exam last Friday and they tricked their families by saying they would study at their colleagues’ homes on Thursday. They left at dawn on Friday,” Babaker said.

The mother of one of the students who had been in Sudan on a visit discovered on Friday afternoon that her son’s passport was missing and called British authorities, Babaker said.

VIENNA — Ah, Vienna. City of music. Crown jewel of the Holy Roman Empire. Birthplace of psychoanalysis. Home of the Lipizzaner stallions. And this week, host of the Iran nuclear negotiations.

But along with the foreign ministers, their delegations and a horde of accompanying journalists, another type has decamped to the Austrian capital for the talks: special interest groups with a stake in the outcome.

Amid the Viennese chocolate, churches and chamber music, advocates and opponents of the emerging deal are out in force, as are some of the families of Americans detained or missing in Iran, all hoping to take advantage of the convergence of world-power officialdom and media to press their points.

“We want the Iranian and US governments to know that we are here,” said Sarah Hekmati, whose brother, former US Marine Amir Hekmati, will spend his 1,400th day in an Iranian prison on Monday. “This is an opportune time, and we want to leverage the opportunity.”

Also in Vienna is Ali Rezaian. He’s the brother of Iranian-American Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post reporter who is facing espionage charges in Iran.

Beyond Hekmati and Rezaian, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini is another American imprisoned in Iran. Retired FBI agent Robert Levinson disappeared in the country eight years ago. American diplomats have regularly raised the fate of all four US citizens in talks with their Iranian counterparts, as yet to no avail.

Closer to the heart of the closed-door nuclear negotiations, pro-Israel groups opposing an agreement and arms control and other organisations in favour of one are competing for the time and attention of negotiators, journalists and experts in hotel lobbies, bars and restaurants across the city. The accord, if reached, would curb Iran’s nuclear programme for a decade in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief.

“It’s very important to provide context to what is happening,” said Trita Parsi, the president of the pro-agreement National Iranian American Council, who arrived in Vienna on Saturday. “The organised elements that don’t want this to happen here are very well-funded and have 35 years of experience. A deal is not going to happen or succeed if only one side is represented. There needs to be a counterbalance.”

His reference to an opposition is clear. On the other side are opinion-shapers such as Josh Block, the CEO of The Israel Project, and his senior aide Omri Ceren, well-known in Washington for almost daily ruminations on the nuclear talks that are sent to some 2,000 journalists, policy experts and congressional aides.

“We’re here to provide facts and analysis, and one fact is that the more detail Americans learn about the developing pact, the more people oppose it,” Block said. He called the package “the wrong deal for America, our values and the future of the Free World”.

Nearby in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel, across from the negotiations at the Palais Coburg Hotel, sits Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation at the Arms Control Association. Her group “supports a verifiable, comprehensive nuclear deal” based on a framework world powers and Iran hashed out in Switzerland almost three months ago.

Cementing the pact “would be a net-plus for nonproliferation”, said Davenport, who arrived in Vienna four days ago. “We are here to follow and report on developments in the talks, consult with parties on both sides of the negotiating table and provide analysis for the media.”

For the Hekmati family, the cause is personal, not political.

Sarah is in Vienna with her husband, Ramy Kurdi, and some star power of her own in television personality Montel Williams, another former Marine who has taken up her brother Amir’s cause at a time when their father, Ali, is dying of brain cancer in Michigan.

“There is a pressing urgency that we feel and we want the world to share,” she said in an interview. “We’re not trying to mix the message, but we do want to take advantage of everyone being here.”

“I just want to make sure that Amir is getting the appropriate amount of public attention,” said Williams, who advocates for veterans on a broad range of matters. On Friday, he delivered a letter outlining father Ali Hekmati’s deteriorating condition to the Iranian embassy in London, hoping it might reach Tehran.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Activists sailing towards Gaza to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territory are nearing their destination but expect to be intercepted, an Israeli television journalist with them reported late Sunday.

“We have been at sea for three days and we are at a distance of no more than 200 kilometres from the Gaza Strip,” Channel Two’s Ohad Hemo said in a broadcast from the deck of the Swedish-flagged Marianne of Gothenburg.

The vessel is part of the so-called Freedom Flotilla III — a convoy of four ships carrying pro-Palestinian activists including Arab Israeli lawmaker Basel Ghattas, Tunisia’s former president Moncef Marzouki and at least one European lawmaker.

“It’s not clear when we’ll arrive. Will we wait for the other three boats that are behind us or try to break through to the Gaza Strip first?” Hemo reported.

In a similar bid to break the blockade in 2010, a pre-dawn raid by Israeli commandos on the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara killed 10 Turkish activists.

Several attempts since have been thwarted, but without bloodshed.

Hemo said that the 50 passengers on the Marianne get twice daily briefings from the organisers on non-violent resistance to the Israeli commandos they expect to board the boat sooner or later.

“We have seen on the sonar an unidentified vessel following us at a distance of about 20 [nautical] miles and the assumption is that it is an [Israeli] naval ship,” he said.

“It is clear to everyone that commandos will board somewhere before entry to Gaza,” he added.

The Israeli government on Sunday published a letter which will be handed to flotilla participants once they are in Israeli hands.

“If and when they reach Israel they will get a nice letter,” foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon told AFP.

“Welcome to Israel!” said a Hebrew-language text of the message seen by AFP which will be given to the activists in English.

“It looks as if you lost your way,” it continues.

“Perhaps you intended to sail to a place not far from here; Syria where [President Bashar] Assad’s regime is every day massacring his people, supported by Iran’s murderous regime.”

Israel imposed its blockade on Gaza in 2006 after Hamas captured an Israeli soldier, and tightened it a year later when the militant Islamist movement took control of the enclave.

In July-August 2014, a 50-day war between Israel and Gaza rulers Hamas — the coastal territory’s third conflict in six years — killed about 2,200 Palestinians and 73 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers, and left 100,000 Gazans homeless.

Port el Kantaoui, Tunisia — He was dressed like a tourist, but his intentions were deadly. Witnesses said Sunday the gunman who mowed town tourists at a Tunisian beach smiled as he pulled the trigger.

Armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, the man who massacred 38 people at a popular beach resort on Friday embarked on a murderous rampage witnesses say lasted more than 40 minutes.

Amir Ben Hadj Hassine lives right next to the beach of the Riu Imperial Marhaba hotel in Port el Kantaoui where the killings took place.

“Some 40 to 45 minutes went by between the sound of the first bullets until he was killed,” the 22-year-old told AFP, still shocked at having seen lifeless bodies sprawled on the sand.

His 16-year-old cousin Malek said he saw the gunman unleash his killing spree.

“I was at the beach. I saw the guy put his parasol down in the sand, squatting just like anyone would to set it up.

“But suddenly he grabbed a Kalashnikov, and started shooting at the sand,” the teenager said.

“Everyone stood up to see what was happening, and then we saw him shoot at the tourists, with a big smile on his face.

“We ran for cover, and he headed towards the Imperial Hotel,” he said.

Seif, 21, described what he called an “incredible” scene.

“The guy was really at ease — you’d think he was dancing or listening to music as he walked along,” he said.

“At one point we were very close to him, but he didn’t shoot at us. He said: ‘You go, I didn’t come for you’.”

Several witnesses said the gunman singled out tourists on the beach, but according to the health ministry, seven Tunisians were also wounded.

After shooting at people on the beach, the gunman — whom the authorities have identified as Seifeddine Rezgui, a university student born in 1992 — headed towards the hotel itself.

“I saw the guy come into the hotel, totally calm,” Amir Ben Hadj Hassine recalled.

Just then, “a patrol boat came in from the sea with two security guards on board. One was armed”, he said.

“They didn’t want to get down to start with. But when the shots inside the hotel quietened down, they left the boat.

“We asked the armed agent to come into the hotel, but he was scared and didn’t shoot,” Amir said.

“Then a [hotel] animator took his weapon and tried to shoot at the terrorist from far away. But the weapon didn’t work.”

Seif also said he saw what happened.

“The animator took the policeman’s weapon and headed towards the hotel to shoot the gunman. He told the policeman: ‘Give me your weapon, let me kill him’,” he said.

Hassen, who oversees parasailing at the nearby El Mouradi Palace Hotel, was at the scene with clients when the attack began.

But his account differs slightly. He remembers “seeing the security guard fall over as he stepped backwards and hit a parasol”.

“A citizen took his weapon” to “shoot the terrorist”, Hassen said.

Minutes later, Amir saw the attacker return to the beach and calmly walk in front of three hotels.

“I was shocked not to see police, even though this area is surrounded by police checkpoints and we’re used to regular patrols,” he said.

“Of course there is a problem — the police didn’t come in time,” he said.

Interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui has refused to comment on such allegations, saying that reinforcements arrived “seven to eight minutes” after the gunman first opened fire.

BAGHDAD — A series of attacks targeting public places killed 12 people in Baghdad on Saturday, said Iraqi authorities, as the prime minister announced the arrest of an aide to Saddam Hussein.

Police officials say a car bomb went off about noon Saturday near shops selling car parts in southeastern Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 13 others.

Another bomb blast at an outdoor market killed three shoppers and wounded eight in the city's eastern suburbs. Also, police said a bomb exploded near a row of shops in the capital's western neighbourhood of Baiyaa, killing two and wounding 10.

Later on, a bomb blast near a vegetable and fruit wholesale market in southern Baghdad killed two people and wounded three others.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. Iraq sees near-daily attacks that are claimed by the Daesh terror group.

Meanwhile, Iraq's Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi announced Saturday that security forces arrested Abdel Baqi Al Sadun, a senior official in the disbanded Baath Party.

Sadun has been at large since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime following the US-led invasion in 2003. During the Hussein era, he was in charge of Baath Party formations in southern Iraq and he is wanted for his role in repressing of the Shiite uprising in 1991.

"I have the pleasure to announce the good news that our security forces were able to arrest the wanted Abdel Baqi Al Sadun. The operation was purely an Iraqi one," said Al Abadi in a speech aired on state television.

Sadun was part of the US military deck of cards containing images of the 55 Saddam regime figures the US military was particularly interested in capturing.

Aden — Fire erupted at Aden's oil refinery Saturday when rebels shelled the nearby port to prevent a Qatari ship carrying aid for Yemen's devastated second city from docking, officials told AFP.

"The rebels fired artillery rounds at the area and one hit an oil tank at the refinery, sparking a fire," said an official at the Aden Refinery Company.

An AFP reporter saw flames raging as pillars of smoke billowed into the skies over the southern city.

A government official told AFP the rebels had targeted a Qatari vessel carrying food supplies from Djibouti, a hub for Yemen-bound humanitarian aid, and that the attack forced it to turn back.

Both the port and the refinery in Aden's Buraiqa district are controlled by pro-government fighters, and the area has seen fierce clashes between rival forces.

The refinery has not been receiving any oil via the port, but it still has 1.2 million tonnes of crude in storage and also gas tanks.

Shiite Houthi rebels who overran the capital Sanaa in September have since expanded their control to several other regions.

In March they advanced on Aden, where President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had taken refuge before fleeing to Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi-led coalition began a bombing campaign against the rebels and in support of Hadi in late March.

Coalition warplanes carried out “at least 15 air raids” across several parts of Aden on Saturday, a pro-Hadi military official said.

Meanwhile, five pro-government fighters and two civilians were killed in clashes rocking Aden on Saturday, medics and militia sources loyal to Hadi said.

More than 2,600 people have been killed in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country since March, according to UN figures. Almost 80 percent of the population — 20 million people — need urgent humanitarian aid.

The situation is particularly serious in Aden, where residents complain of food and water shortages and health officials warn of disease spreading.

Earlier this month, a UN-chartered ship carrying humanitarian supplies bound for Yemen was targeted by shelling as it approached Aden.

In another southern province, Shabwa, tribesmen killed nine rebels in an attack on a troop carrier on Saturday, a military source close to the Houthis told AFP.

Rebel forces comprise both Houthis and renegade troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

BEIRUT — Kurdish forces drove Daesh fighters from the flashpoint Syrian border town of Kobani on Saturday, after a killing spree by the militants left more than 200 civilians dead.

Forces of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) stormed IS' last remaining position, taking full control of Kobani, a powerful symbol of Kurdish resistance.

As they combed the streets for fugitive jihadists, the Kurds found more bodies, taking the civilian death toll to 206, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Local journalist Rudi Mohammad Amin told AFP that more civilians were still unaccounted for.

The jihadists made their last stand in a boys' high school.

"The YPG detonated explosives outside of the school, then stormed it," Amin said, speaking via the Internet from near Kobani on the border with Turkey.

"This military operation was carried out after ensuring that there were no civilians left in the school."

Amin said he believed all the Daesh militants inside were killed.

The jihadists had entered Kobani at dawn on Thursday disguised in YPG uniforms and seized several buildings in the town's south and southwest.

The YPG quickly surrounded the jihadist positions, but it took two days to re-establish control.

Some civilians were killed in the streets by rocket or sniper fire, and others were executed in their homes.

'Entire families killed' 

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the bodies found on Saturday bore bullet marks and appeared to include entire families.

"The bodies were found littered in homes and in the streets, lying here and there," he said.

The toll included at least 180 civilians killed in Kobani itself, and another 26 executed in a nearby village.

At least 300 people were wounded.

The Daesh operation was widely seen as vengeance for a series of defeats at the hands of Kurdish militia, particularly the jihadists’ loss of Tal Abyad, another border town further east, on June 16.

“IS [Daesh] doesn’t want to take over the town. They just came to kill the highest number of civilians in the ugliest ways possible,” local journalist Mostafa Ali told AFP on Friday.

A total of 16 Kurdish fighters and 54 jihadists were also killed.

The observatory chief said that Daesh had achieved its objective.

“You cannot call this last operation a real defeat for Daesh, because it did what it wanted to in Kobani,” Abdel Rahman said.

In January, Kurdish forces backed by rebel groups and US-led air strikes pushed Daesh out of Kobani after four months of fierce fighting in a hugely symbolic defeat for the jihadists.

Further east, government forces launched a counter-attack Saturday against Daesh in the provincial capital of Hasakeh, on the third day of intense clashes.

Hasakeh civilians flee 

According to the UN, at least 120,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in the city, which had a pre-war population of 300,000.

The fighting largely took place in the southern Hasakeh, where Daesh seized two neighbourhoods on Thursday.

The UN estimated that “90,000 people have been displaced, many pre-emptively, to the eastern and northern neighbourhoods of the city... as well as to nearby villages”.

It said another 30,000 people had fled further north and northeast to other cities and towns in Hasakeh province.

The Observatory said government reinforcements from further south in Deir Ezzor, including Republican Guard units, had arrived.

Kurdish units, who share control of the city with government forces, joined the fighting late on Friday and banned civilians from the streets.

Daesh also tried to seize Hasakeh last month, but was pushed back by government forces.

On Friday, Information Minister Omran Zohbi called on “anyone who is capable of carrying a gun” to join the fight against Daesh in Hasakeh.

“Protecting the city of Hasakeh from the terrorist takfiri [extremist Sunni] attacks is a duty shared among all the sons of the city,” Zohbi said.

In the southern city of Daraa, fighting continued between government forces and rebel groups including Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front.

Since Thursday, 60 rebels, 18 government loyalists and 11 civilians have been killed in the fighting.

Kuwait detained the owner of a car that took a bomber to a Shiite mosque to carry out the country's worst ever militant attack, officials said on Saturday, as thousands calling for national unity turned out to bury some of the 27 killed, Reuters reported.

The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing against 2,000 worshippers praying at the Imam Al Sadeq Mosque on Friday, one of three attacks on three continents that day apparently linked to hardline Islamists.

In Tunisia, a gunman killed 38 people including Western tourists on a beach, and in France a decapitated body was found after an attacker rammed his car into a gas container, triggering an explosion.

Officials said the bombing was clearly meant to stir enmity between majority Sunnis and minority Shiites and harm the comparatively harmonious ties between the sects in Kuwait.

In a statement, the information ministry said Kuwait would face the situation with "unity and solidarity". It reiterated what it called the government's strong stance on the freedom of religion and opinion, noting these were rights protected by the constitution.

The interior ministry, which reported the vehicle owner’s arrest, said it was now looking for the driver who vanished shortly after Friday’s blast in Kuwait, which has been spared the rampant violence of neighbouring Iraq and the recent spate of Daesh bombings of Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia, another neighbour.

A security source told Reuters “numerous arrests” had been made in connection with Friday’s bombing.

At the burial site in the Sulaibikhat district, some waved Kuwaiti flags while others bore the large mourning banners, in red, black or green, that are typical of Shiite funerals.

Chants from the crowd included “Brothers of Sunni and Shia, we will not sell out our country”, “No Sunni, no Shia, we are one Islam”, “The martyrs are the beloved of God” and “Down with Daesh! Down with Daesh”.

One group of mourners said they had travelled from Qatif in Saudi Arabia where 21 people were killed by a Daesh suicide bombing in May.

Two Iranian nationals were among those killed, foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham was quoted as saying by Iranian state media on Saturday.

Relatives of seven of those killed wept and prayed over their shrouded corpses at a mosque on Saturday, where they were waiting to be taken to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq for burial.

“We will cut the evil hand that interferes with our homeland’s security,” Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammed Al Khaled Al Sabah was quoted as saying by state news agency KUNA.

Kuwait has stepped up security to the highest level at state-run oil conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) and its affiliates, KUNA also reported.

Daesh named the bomber as Abu Suleiman Al Muwahed and said on social media that he had targeted a “temple of the apostates” — a term the group uses to refer to Shiites, whom it regards as heretics. It did provide details of his nationality.

Daesh had urged its followers on Tuesday to step up attacks during the Ramadan fasting month against Christians, Shiites and Sunni Muslims fighting with a US-led coalition against the ultra-hardline jihadist group.

Tunisia steps up security

Tunisia’s prime minister announced on Saturday a string of new security measures including closing renegade mosques and calling up army reservists as thousands of tourists left the North African country in wake of its worst terrorist attack ever, according to the Associated Press.

Tourists crowded into the airport at Hammamet near the coastal city of Sousse where a young man dressed in shorts on Friday pulled an assault rifle out of his beach umbrella and killed 38 people, mostly tourists — many of whom were tourists.

“The fight against terrorism is a national responsibility,” visibly exhausted Prime Minister Habib Essid said at a news conference in Tunis. “We are at war against terrorism which represents a serious danger to national unity during this delicate period that the nation is going through.”

Essid announced the call-up of army reservists and said they would be deployed in tourist sites around the country and inside hotels, while he called on the hotels themselves to do more to enforce security.

He also said that political parties and associations espousing radical ideas with suspicious funding would be closed down and around 80 mosques known for extremist preaching would be shut.

The government has been criticised for its lackluster anti-terror measures, especially since 22 people were killed by gunmen at the national museum in March. There was also been a failed suicide bomb attack in Sousse in 2013.

Top security official Rafik Chelli said Friday that heightened security measures had been in place for the summer season around the hotel and security had responded quickly to the attack.

“The attack is an isolated operation of the sort that could affect anyone,” he said, noting that just days earlier two other planned attacks had been thwarted.

The attacker, who was killed by security forces, was identified as Seifeddine Rezgui, a young student at Kairouan University. A tweet from Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack and gave his jihadi pseudonym of Abu Yahya Al Qayrawani, according to the SITE intelligence group.

Attack in France

In France authorities are questioning a 35-year-old delivery man of North African origin over a suspected Islamist attack involving the beheading of his boss and an attempt to blow up a US-owned chemicals plant in southeastern France, according to Reuters.

President Francois Hollande, dealing with new security fears less than six months after 17 people were killed by Islamist gunmen at satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish foodstore in Paris, said the incident clearly amounted to a terrorist attack.

Yassim Salhi is suspected of having rammed his delivery van into a warehouse of gas containers, triggering an initial explosion. He was arrested minutes later while opening canisters containing flammable chemicals, prosecutors said on Friday
Police later found the head of the 54-year-old manager of the transport firm that employed the suspect, dangling from a fence at the site, framed by flags with written references to Islam.

Salhi is being held in Lyon, where he was refusing to respond to interrogators on Saturday, according to a law-enforcement source. His wife, sister and a fourth person are also in detention.

Salhi is known to have associated with Islamists over more than a decade and had previously been flagged by French authorities as a potential risk, but there has been no claim of responsibility for the attack.

While an anti-terrorist inquiry has been launched, Paris public prosecutor Francois Molins said it would be premature to make any conclusions at this stage and investigators had yet to fully understand what happened at the industrial zone in Saint Quentin-Fallavier, 30km south of the city of Lyon.

“Questions remain over the exact chronology of events, what happened when he arrived, the circumstances of the decapitation, the motivation and whether there were accomplices,” he said.

There was no evidence Friday’s three attacks were deliberately coordinated. But coming so close together, they underscored the far-reaching, fast-growing influence of Daesh, Western politicians said, according to Reuters.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian prisoner held in an Israeli jail and on hunger strike for 53 days is in a critical condition and could die "at any moment", his lawyer said Saturday.

"Khader Adnan may suddenly die at any moment, doctors have confirmed to me," Jawad Boulos, legal counsel for the Ramallah-based Prisoners Club told AFP.

He said he received a call in the middle of the night saying "that the doctors at the Israeli hospital, where Khadar Adnan is currently held, were on alert due to the deterioration of his condition".

Boulos said he made a bedside visit to his client on Saturday morning and found him "in a more critical condition, incapable of moving".

Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said Adnan was receiving treatment in Assaf Harofeh Hospital near Tel Aviv, but she could not comment on his medical condition.

Adnan is being held in "administrative detention", a procedure under which Israel imprisons Palestinian suspects without trial indefinitely for renewable six-month periods. 

He was arrested as part of an Israeli mass roundup shortly after last June's kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank.

Israel blamed the killings on Hamas, but although the Islamist movement hailed the attack, it said the killers acted independently.