Eight dead in Tunisian shootout with militants

TUNIS, Tunisia -- Tunisia's National Guard stormed a suspected militant hideout in a seaside suburb of Tunis after a daylong standoff Tuesday. Seven radicals were killed, including suspect in a political assassination last year, a minister said.

One National Guard member died in the clash, which comes almost a year after the assassination of left-wing politician Chokri Belaid by Islamist extremists set off a political crisis in this North Africa nation.

Hundreds of masked anti-terror units flooded the Tunis neighborhood of Raoued during the standoff, filling its streets with armored vehicles.

In the aftermath of the 2011 overthrow of its secular dictatorship, Tunisia saw a rise of radical Islamic groups, many of whom took up arms against the state, killing politicians and clashing with soldiers.

Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou said one of the militants killed had been identified as Kamel Gadhgadhi, the suspected assassin of Belaid. Two other radicals killed were involved in the ambush of soldiers in Mount Chaambi that left eight dead, five with slit throats, he said.

"We chose not to drop our guard in the face of terrorism and we will fight them despite the costs to our security forces," said Ben Jeddou, whose job had been threatened by his inability to bring the killers of Belaid to justice. "We will keep working to reveal the truth of the two political assassinations."

Ben Jeddou showed a photo of the slain Gadhgadhi wearing an explosive belt. He said police had recovered a large amount of weapons, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades from two houses occupied by the militants.

The minister identified the attackers as members of Ansar al-Shariah, an ultraconservative Islamic movement that has been banned as a terrorist movement for its alleged links to al-Qaida and its involvement in attacks.

Sandwiched between Algeria, the birthplace of al-Qaida's North African branch, and Libya, a source of weapons following its civil war, Tunisia has had to deal with a rising threat of armed militants.

Nearly every month there's news of a shootout between security forces and militants, especially in the mountains along its border with Algeria. At least a dozen soldiers have been killed in clashes around Mount Chaambi, near the city of Kasserine.

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AP photographer Amine Landolssi contributed to this report.