Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi told FRANCE 24 Wednesday that Tunisia had become home to terrorist “sleeper cells” that need to be “removed”.

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Essebsi spoke exclusively to FRANCE 24 in the wake of the attack on a Tunis museum which killed at least 22 people, including 20 tourists, and sparked a three-hour hostage crisis.

Essebsi said the gunmen had been “identified” and linked to the radical Islamist group, Ansar al-Sharia.

The group has been accused of masterminding a series of political assassinations in 2013, as well as attacks on cultural targets and also the US embassy in 2012.

“This is an act without precedent in Tunisian history,” Essebsi said of Wednesday’s deadly assault. “It is a major catastrophe for Tunisia and its people. Many of the victims were friends of Tunisia who came to this country as tourists.”

Essebsi added that Tunisia would start implementing new security measures to prevent a repeat of this “intolerable provocation”.

“Every Tunisian should feel directly threatened by what happened today,” he said. “And I think the people of Tunisia will respond as one man.”

Essebsi denied that the attack was in any way linked to the chaos across the border in Libya, and said security forces were closing in on the “many sleeper cells in Tunisia”.

Targeting radical groups in Libya in response to Wednesday’s attacks would only “aggravate the situation,” he said.

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