Tunisia clashes kill three in capital

One Tunisian police officer and two armed men have been killed during a police operation in the capital, Tunis.

Tunisian Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said clashes erupted on Monday, when police surrounded a house in the capital’s northern suburb, Raoued, in an attempt to arrest a number of suspects. The spokesman added that the standoff was not yet over.

Aroui did not name the group to which the armed men belonged to and it was not clear how many remained inside the building.

Since last year, Tunisian authorities have cracked down on Salafist groups in the country.

On December 30, 2013, the leader of Tunisia’s Salafist Ansar al-Sharia group, Seifallah Ben Hassine, was arrested in Libya after a Tunisian court ordered an international warrant for his arrest.

At least 200 people including the supporters of the group were arrested last May following clashes between security forces and Salafists in a suburb of the capital.

The Ansar al-Sharia is one of the militant groups formed after the Tunisian revolution that led to the ouster of the country’s dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, in 2011.

The Tunisian government declared the group a terrorist organization earlier this year.