Tunisian policeman dies after knife attack outside parliament
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Tunis: A Tunisian policeman died Thursday a day after he was stabbed by an Islamist extremist outside parliament in a bustling part of the capital Tunis, the authorities said.
Commander Riadh Barrouta, who was knifed in the neck in Wednesday's attack, "has died", interior ministry spokesman Yasser Mesbah said.
A second officer was lightly wounded in the forehead in the early morning assault before the attacker in his mid-20s was quickly arrested.
After the attack, the interior ministry said the assailant had confessed to having adopted an "extremist" ideology three years ago.
"Killing them (police), he believes, is a form of jihad," it said.
Prosecutors on Thursday said the man -- an unemployed computer science graduate born in 1992 -- appeared to have acted alone and did not belong to any cell, but "intended to join terrorist groups" in neighbouring Libya.
The attacker, who comes from a suburb of Tunis, would be taken before anti-terrorist prosecutors on Friday, said Sofiene Sliti, a spokesman for the prosecutors' office.
The authorities also said they had launched a probe into the leaking online of a one-minute video of his interrogation.
Since its 2011 revolution, which sparked the Arab Spring, Tunisia's security forces have faced a series of jihadist attacks that have claimed the lives of more than 100 soldiers and police.
