Daesh claims Tunis shooting

TUNIS

Daesh militant group has claimed responsibility for a deadly shooting that claimed the lives of seven Tunisian soldiers along with a comrade blamed for the rampage in a military barracks in Tunis on Monday.

In a statement posted on Afriqiyah Media, a site often used by Daesh-linked groups in North Africa, the group identified the attacker as Mehdi Jaami and described him as a "lone lion."

According to the release, Jaami "slaughtered" a soldier and snatched his gun, which he used later to open fire on other soldiers in the Bouchoucha army barracks in Tunis' Bardo district.

The details of the attack matched these announced Monday by Defense Ministry spokesman Belhassen Oueslati who asserted that the attacker had stabbed a fellow soldier and seized his gun, which he had used to shoot soldiers stationed in the barracks.

However, Oueslati on Monday dismissed that the attack should be considered an "armed attack", asserting that the attacking soldier, who held the rank of sergeant, had suffered from "a behavioral disorder and had family problems".

"He had been relieved of his weapons and transferred to a non-sensitive unit," Oueslati said Monday, without revealing the name of the perpetrator.