A lawmaker from Tunisia’s ruling secular party escaped an assassination attempt on Thursday when a gunman riddled his car with automatic rifle fire from a passing vehicle in the coastal city of Sousse.
Ridha Charfeddine, who said he was unharmed, told Jawhara FM radio he was shot at from another car on the road.
“I wasn’t able to see the shooter sitting in the back seat,” added the legislator with Nidaa Tounes, the party of President Beji Caid Essebsi.
“It’s a miracle that I’m still alive,” said Charfeddine, who is president of a first division football club, Etoile Sportive de Sahel.
The popular resort city was the site in June of a beachfront massacre in which a jihadist gunman killed 38 foreign tourists. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Sousse massacre and the killing in March of 21 people at the national museum in Tunis.
The North African country has undergone a largely peaceful transition to democracy since a 2011 popular uprising, but the army faces a rising tide of Islamist militant violence and several thousand Tunisians have also joined up with militant groups fighting in Iraq and Syria.
Tunisia is especially worried about militants entering its territory from neighbouring Libya, where Islamic State has established itself amid the chaos and security vacuum caused by two rival governments battling for control.c
