At least 27 dead in terror attack at Tunisia hotel

[Liep]

Death toll is at 37.

Will probably also rise in Kuwait, there was 2000 people in that mosque when the bomb exploded. At least 200 injured.

[The Larch]

Horrible tragedy. Tunisia is one of the few Muslim nations in the region that seem to be doing well politically and in their society compared to many other nations in the region. But the whole region is still in flux so who knows how things will turn out.

You don't hear much about Morocco so they must be doing well.

In Morocco the monarchy stamps out extremist religious groups because he doesn't like to be challenged in his autocracy, not because he's a committed democrat. 

[Syt]

While I appreciate the the Tunisian security units support the Austrian economy by using Steyr AUGs, I feel they need to work on their trigger safety discipline.

[Zanza]

Immediate effect on Tunesia's tourism industry...

[Syt]

Lots of tourist flights to Tunisia have been cancelled

[Admiral Yi]

Allahu ackbar!

[jimmy olsen]

Immediate effect on Tunesia's tourism industry...

Exactly what the perpetrators want. Cause economic difficulties and exploit the political fallout.

[jimmy olsen]

At least 5 of the 37 victims were British.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/26/tourists-relive-horror-of-gunmans-attack-on-tunisian-hotel-killing-37

Edit: 5, not 11, don't know where I got that number from.

[Tonitrus]

At least 11 of the 37 victims were British.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/26/tourists-relive-horror-of-gunmans-attack-on-tunisian-hotel-killing-37

That link has one, but I've seen another that is even worse...the photos of the victims lying covered by blankets next to their beach chairs...   

[alfred russel]

ISIS has become a fine example of what actual evil looks like.

Even AQ has nothing on these guys.

Starting to reconsider your staunch backing of the Arab Spring?

[jimmy olsen]

Plot to bomb armed forces day parade in UK foiled

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/27/police-foil-islamic-state-isis-attack-uk-armed-forces-day-parade

[Berkut]

ISIS has become a fine example of what actual evil looks like.

Even AQ has nothing on these guys.

Starting to reconsider your staunch backing of the Arab Spring?

No, not at all.

[jimmy olsen]

Much worse for Britain than feared.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/28/tunisia-attack-uk-security-force-tourist-resorts

At least 30 Britons are understood to have been killed in the beach massacre in Tunisia, it emerged on Sunday. Informed sources said the eventual figure could be even higher.

The official British death toll is now known to be much higher than originally reported, because of the time taken to confirm the identities of those killed. The process is being overseen by a British coroner. Due to the nature and location of the attack, and the numbers involved, the process has not been straightforward.


One problem is that many of those killed on the beach were wearing swimwear, and not carrying documentation that would identify them. Another problem is that, in some cases, it has taken time to find relatives able to give a visual identification. Some of the bodies have had to be identified through alternative methods, such as using dental records.

The Foreign Office will only confirm British fatalities once identification has been formally completed, which is why it has taken more than 48 hours for the full extent of British suffering to emerge.

More than 600 British police have now been deployed in response to Friday's attack in one of the biggest counter-terrorism operations since the London bombings on 7 July 2005.

Almost 400 officers were at UK airports over the weekend to speak to potential witnesses returning from the scene of the attack on a luxury hotel in the resort city of Sousse that claimed the lives of at least 38 people.

Sixteen senior Metropolitan police detectives, forensic specialists and family liaison officers arrived in Tunisia over the weekend, and more are set to join them to assist in the investigation and prevent possible further attacks.

Tunisian investigators said on Sunday that they were seeking one or more accomplices of the 23-year-old gunman, Seifeddine Rezgui, who was shot dead by police after his assault on the Imperial Marhaba hotel.They have questioned the student's father and three of his college roommates. .

Mohammed Ali Aroui, an interior ministry spokesman told the Associated Press: "We are sure that others helped, but did not participate."

New video footage emerged on Sunday that appeared to show Rezgui running across the beach immediately after the killings.

Speaking after a meeting of the government's Cobra emergency planning committee in London, home secretary Theresa May said an expanded British security team in Tunisia would "look at protective security arrangements around tourist resorts", and the Foreign Office warned further attacks were possible.

The killings represent the largest loss of British life to terrorism since the July 2005 London bombings. Scotland Yard said it was tightening security and protection at Wimbledon and other "key sites, businesses and public places around the UK to help ensure they are safe for visitors and workers".

"The national policing response to the attack in Tunisia is likely to be one of the largest counter-terrorism deployments seen since July 2005," said the Met's assistant commissioner, Mark Rowley.

As more of the British dead were named on Sunday, 60 family liaison officers were deployed in the UK to accompany with relatives of those killed and injured.

Three generations of the same family were named among the dead on Sunday. Nineteen-year-old student Joel Richards, his uncle Adrian Evans, 49, a gas services manager from Tipton in the West Midlands, and his grandfather, were all killed in the attack.

Carly Lovett, 24, a photographer and beauty blogger, Sue Davey and Scott Chalkley, a couple in their 40s, and Lisa Burbridge from Whickham, Gateshead were also confirmed dead.

Trudy Jones, from Blackwood in Gwent, south Wales, was named by her local MP. Jim and Ann McQuire from Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire and Bruce Wilkinson, 72, from Goole, East Yorkshire, were also killed.

The Foreign Office has urged travellers to Tunisia to be especially vigilant. It said: "Further terrorist attacks in Tunisia, including in tourist resorts, are possible, including by individuals who are unknown to the authorities and whose actions are inspired by terrorist groups via social media."

The Tunisian authorities have deployed 1,000 extra police and military to guard beaches and resort hotels, but the UK's former counter-terrorism chief said on Sunday that emboldened jihadis were plotting to kill westerners anywhere in the world, and that stopping them from accessing public areas such as beaches was near-impossible.

Peter Clarke, who was in charge of Scotland Yard's response to the 7/7 bombings, said terrorists' choice of targets had widened. "It's everything from government installations to nightclubs, to the energy sector to holiday destinations. The common theme is to kill as many people as possible," he said.

"How do you protect a coastline? There is going to be vulnerability, that is just a fact of life."

In the UK, Scotland Yard said security would be more stringent and more visible than last year at Wimbledon, when the overall terror threat in was "substantial" rather than "severe", the second highest level, as it is now.

Extra officers will patrol the area around the event, which attracts as many as to 40,000 spectators a day. Roads will be closed and "a highly mobile reserve that can respond to emerging incidents" will be in place, a spokesman said. Uniformed and plainclothes officers will be on duty.

Security had also been tightened at the Pride march and the Armed Forces Day parade in London on Saturday. Rowley said: "It is right that we keep our security plans under continual review to help protect and reassure the public.

"There has been a significant increase in the level of counter-terrorist policing activity in the UK. Last year, there were over 330 arrests, about one a day, and 89 people were convicted for terror-related offences."

Amid the increasing tensions over the threat posed to Britons by Islamic State, the former head of the British army, Lord Dannatt, said the west should take the fight to the extremist group on the ground, in their heartlands.

"We have got to do much more to support those in the region who are fighting Islamist extremists on the ground," he told BBC1's Sunday Politics. "Yes, we can support them from the air, we should be doing more of that, but we should be doing more to support them on the ground as well.

"More training teams, better equipment and really giving those who are willing to fight the best chance of succeeding, because to succeed on the ground is the really important thing to do."

Security services across the west were alarmed throughout 2014 by the growth in the Islamic State's potency, and its ability to attract western youngsters to its cause. They point out that al-Qaida also still poses a substantial threat.

In August 2014, the UK terrorist level was raised to its second highest level of "severe", meaning a terrorist attack is highly likely. May said the heightened alert was "related to developments in Syria and Iraq, where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the west".

Attacks in Sydney, New York and Ottawa in late 2014, then Paris in January 2015, demonstrated that terrorists had the ability to strike on western soil. The attacks ranged from an individual seemingly acting alone, to a group coordinating their efforts and carrying out an attack involving a significant degree of sophistication.

The danger from so called leaderless jihad, where propaganda incites "lone wolves", has added to the threat from more directed and sophisticated plots. Terrorism has claimed lives on Britain's streets twice in recent years. The 2005 London attacks by four suicide bombers killed 52 people and left 750 injured, and the soldier Lee Rigby was killed near Woolwich military barracks in south London in May 2013 by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowlale.

In an article for the Daily Telegraph, David Cameron said that the government would counter the threat posed by Islamist extremists with a "full-spectrum response" and that it was important to show "unshakeable resolve" in the face of terror.

"When the gunman attacked innocent people spending time with their families on the beach, he was attacking the very things we stand for," wrote Cameron, who will make a statement to MPs on the Tunisian attack on Monday. "We must be stronger at standing up for our values – of peace, democracy, tolerance, freedom."

Cameron said that, as well as dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy, helping countries like Tunisia improve their security and attacking Islamic State at source, the government had to tackle the "poisonous ideology" behind Islamist extremism.

"We must be more intolerant of intolerance – rejecting anyone whose views condone the Islamist extremist narrative and create the conditions for it to flourish," he said.

[The Brain]

"We must be more intolerant of intolerance – rejecting anyone whose views condone the Islamist extremist narrative and create the conditions for it to flourish," he said.

Whoa!

[Liep]

"We must be more intolerant of intolerance – rejecting anyone whose views condone the Islamist extremist narrative and create the conditions for it to flourish," he said.

Whoa!

Fight fire with fire!