Tunis: Tunisia plans within a week to close down 80 mosques that remain outside state control for inciting violence, as a countermeasure after the hotel attack that killed 39 people, Prime Minister Habib Essid said on Friday.

The announcement came after a gunman opened fire on a tourist resort hotel in Sousse city, south of the capital. Since its 2011 uprising to oust Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has struggled to manage ultraconservative Islamist movements.

New security measures

Essid on Saturday announced new anti-terrorism measures, including the deployment of reserve troops to reinforce security at ‘sensitive sites... and places that could be targets of terrorist attacks’.

The ‘exceptional plan to better secure tourist and archaeological sites’ will include ‘deploying armed tourist security officers all along the coast and inside hotels from 1 July,’ he added.

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi told AFP that his country cannot stand up to the jihadist threat alone, and urged a unified global strategy.

In Cairo, leading Sunni Muslim institution Al-Azhar called the ‘heinous’ shooting a ‘violation of all religious and humanitarian norms’.

Tunisia, birthplace of the Arab Spring, has seen a surge in radical Islam since veteran president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in the 2011 revolution.

Dozens of members of the security forces have been killed in jihadist attacks since then.

In October 2013, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a botched attack on a Sousse beach while security forces foiled another planned attack nearby.

Even before the latest attack, Tunisia’s tourism industry had been bracing for a heavy blow from the Bardo shooting, but was determined to attract tourists with new security measures and advertising.

Tourism accounts for seven percent of Tunisia’s GDP and almost 400,000 direct and indirect jobs.