Troops kill assailant few hours before Tunisia vote

The Tunisian troops have killed a gunman and captured three others on early hours on Sunday, when they attacked soldiers guarding ballot papers for the country’s presidential vote.

The pre-dawn attack has targeted a school in the central region of Kairouan where the ballot papers had been stored under army guard.

“The vigilance of the soldiers and the swiftness of their response thwarted this operation and led to the death of a man armed with a hunting rifle and the arrest of three suspects,” ministry spokesman Belhassan Oueslati told AFP.

Before the day runs out, it is expected that the country may have finished their voting for the next president and a full democracy nearly four years after an uprising which ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.