TUNIS-
Tunisian security forces in detention a suspect in the murder of opposition politician Mohamed Brahmi after a severe gun battle during an overnight raid on a militant hideout, the interior ministry’s spokesman said on Sunday.
Brahimi was the second of two opposition politicians to have been assassinated last year by suspected jihadists as Islamist violence rocked the North African country, which was the birthplace of the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011.
The security forces “surrounded a house where a terrorist group had holed up. Following a sustained exchange of fire, four elements were arrested,” interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told a foreign new agency.
“Among them is Hmed el-Melki, alias ‘Somali,’ one of the elements implicated in the assassination of the martyr Mohamed Brahmi,” he said, adding weapons were seized during the raid.
“The interior ministry stresses that it was a successful operation,” the spokesman said without revealing the identities of the other suspects.