Gunman kills four at Tunisia synagogue pilgrimage

Tunis, Tunisia (AFP):

A Tunisian police officer shot dead four people at Africa’s oldest synagogue in an attack that sparked panic during an annual Jewish pilgrimage on the island of Djerba.

He gunned down two visitors, including a French citizen, and two fellow officers before he was shot dead himself, the interior ministry said.

Another four visitors and five police officers were wounded in the attack, the first on foreign visitors to Tunisia since 2015 and the first on the pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue since 2002.

The Tunisian foreign ministry identified the two visitors killed as a 30-year-old Tunisian and a French national, aged 42. It did not release their names.

The assailant had first shot dead a colleague and taken his ammunition before opening fire at the synagogue, sparking panic among the hundreds of visitors there.

“Investigations are continuing in order to shed light on the motives for this cowardly aggression,” the interior ministry said.

The French government “condemns this heinous act in the strongest terms,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller also condemned the shooting rampage.

“The United States deplores the attack in Tunisia coinciding with the annual Jewish pilgrimage that draws faithful to the El Ghriba Synagogue from around the world,” he said on Twitter.