On 22 March, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi said a third gunman was involved in the attack, and is at large.
On 28 March, Tunisian police killed Lokman Abu Sakhra, an Algerian suspected of planning the attack, along with eight other armed men during a raid in the southern Gafsa region. They were allegedly major members of the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade, a splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said, "[T]he nine were among the most dangerous terrorists in Tunisia." Sakhra was said to be the leader of the group. The Tunisian government said the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade was responsible for the attack, despite claims of responsibility made by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
On 20 May, 22-year-old Moroccan illegal immigrant Abdelmajid Touil was arrested in Italy on allegations that he aided the attackers.
In December 2017 US Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson named Wanas al-Faqih and two other men, as terrorists. On January 4, 2018, when the State Department listed al-Faqih on its list of globally designated terrorists they described him as having planned the Bardo Museum bombing.The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack, and threatened to commit further attacks. However, the Tunisian government blamed a local splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, called the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade, for the attack. A police raid killed nine members ten days later.
Country | Number |
---|---|
France | 4 |
Italy | 4 |
Japan | 3 |
Poland | 3 |
Colombia | 2 |
Spain | 2 |
Tunisia | 1 |
Belgium | 1 |
Russia | 1 |
United Kingdom | 1 |
Total | 22 |