Sousse

Tourists crowded into the airport at Hammamet near the coastal city of Sousse where a young man dressed in shorts on Friday pulled an assault rifle out of his beach umbrella and killed 39 people, mostly tourists.

"The fight against terrorism is a national responsibility," said a visibly exhausted Habib Essid at a press conference in Tunis early Saturday. "We are at war against terrorism which represents a serious danger to national unity during this delicate period that the nation is going through."

The gunmen opened fire on the beach in the resort town of Sousse between the Soviva and Imperial Marhaba hotels before security forces responded, killing one of the attackers, Interior Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui said. The other attacker fled the scene, he said.

There were no details about the nationalities of the victims, but during the holy month of Ramadan Tunisia's Muslim population is less likely to go the beach, so those there would have been predominantly foreign tourists.