An ISIS-inspired student masquerading as a beachgoer opened fire on sunbathers at a popular Tunisian resort — killing dozens of vacationers.
Dressed in swim trunks, the shooter pulled a Kalashnikov assault rifle from his sun parasol and sprayed bullets at the mostly European tourists, killing at least 39 and wounding 40, as they lounged on the sand and by the pool at the Mediterranean resort of Port El Kantaoui.
Panic ensued as people watched loved ones being shot and parents dashed into the surf to grab their children.
The terrorist continued to spray bullets as he entered the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel, leaving a trail of blood from the marble floor to the pool area, where Tunisian authorities shot him dead.
At first, vacationers on the beach with their children said they mistook the crackle of gunfire for fireworks until panicked people sprinted down the beach.
“I just ran to the sea to my children . . . and as I was running towards the hotel the waiters and the security on the beach started saying, ‘Run, run run!’ ” said Irish tourist Elizabeth O’Brien.
Another woman had to be dragged away screaming after her husband was shot. “He was just saying, ‘I love you, I love you,’ and then his eyes rolled back in his head,” said witness Olivia Leathley, of Britain.
The shooter, identified as Saifeddine Rezgui, 23, an electrical-engineering student, targeted tourists and yelled at Tunisians to “stay away!”
“I didn’t come for you,” he shouted.
ISIS took responsibility for the attack in a Twitter post Friday night that referred to the resort as a brothel and the victims as “infidels.”
The hotel said most of its 565 guests were from Europe.
One of the dead has been identified as an Irish woman and at least five were British tourists, officials said.
The seaside massacre took place the same morning a worker was beheaded at a factory in France and a suicide bomber killed 27 people at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait.
A senior US counterterrorism official told The Post the attacks were uncoordinated but likely inspired by a recent call from ISIS militants “to make Ramadan a month of calamities for the nonbelievers.”
American officials condemned the bloodshed. “Let there be no mistake, we are committed to continuing our efforts to hunt and kill terrorists,” said Steven Warren, director of Defense Department operations.
A Tunisian political party that is part of the ruling coalition issued a statement: “There is a tiny but poisonous fringe of society across our region which has wrongly interpreted the Islamic faith and wishes to destroy Tunisia’s progress, at any cost.”