Chilling video footage has emerged of where the gunman behind the Tunisia terror attack was living before he massacred nearly 40 tourists on a beach.
Armed with a Kalashnikov machine gun, Islamic State recruit and student Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire on sunbathers on the beach in the resort town of Sousse.
A Tunisian security source confirmed Tuesday police were searching for two suspected accomplices and they believe there were two gunmen involved.
Police have issued an alert for the two suspects, Mohamed Bin Adbdallah and Rafikhe Taiari.
In footage taken from Tunisia’s Mosaique station, the gunman was shown to be living in a filthy, barren home with other students.
A single knife, fork and spoon were still on a dinner table, where he could have had his final meal before going on his killing spree.
Some cupboards were full of rubbish, dirty bowls and cups, while others were left without anything in them, as if they had barely been touched.
His fridge had a couple of chili peppers, potatoes and tomatoes left on the shelves.
Hours before Rezgui’s attack, an official revealed he had spoken to his father, after a swimmer discovered the attacker’s mobile phone in the Mediterranean.
The phone showed he called his father just before his beachside massacre at Riu Imperial Marhaba on the outskirts of Sousse. He was later shot dead by police who pursued him.
His father, Hakim Rezgui, has spoken of his shame and has apologized for his son’s actions, saying he had found the news difficult to “comprehend.”
“My God, I am so shocked. I don’t know who has contacted him, influenced him or who has put these ideas in his head. He has new friends who got him into this,” he said.
His uncle also said he had spoken with him about his life and studies the day before the attack.
“Everything was perfectly normal,” said his uncle Ali Bin Muhammad Rezgui.
The distraught 70-year-old said: “He was with me on Thursday. We sat in the garden and he was perfectly normal.”
Hotel worker chases gunman
Incredible footage emerged of a hotel worker who chased the Tunisian gunman moments after he slaughtered innocent tourists.
The unnamed man, who filmed the end of the massacre on his phone, can be seen running after Rezgui, who is still armed and targeting people in his way.
He picked up what appeared to be a bottle of olive oil as he tried to disarm him.
Gunman’s links to terror network
While police have detained Rezgui’s family members, their accounts of who he was contradict new reports that he was inspired by an Islamic fanatic who ran a global terror network.
Rezgui’s mentor was Saifallah Ben Hassine, a founding leader of Ansar al-Sharia, the main terror group in Tunisia, the Telegraph reports.
Ben Hassine, 49, arrived in Britain in the late 1990s and became a follower of hate preacher Abu Qatada, who was then also based in London.
The terror organization, which was behind a suicide attack at another beach resort in Sousse two years ago, is seen as the Tunisian wing of Islamic State.
Arrests as terror probe looms
Authorities have arrested a group of suspects linked to Rezgui.
Interior Minister Najem Gharsalli said officials were also working to verify whether the gunman had been trained in jihadist camps in neighboring Libya.
“We have started by arresting a first group, a significant number of people, from the network that was behind this terrorist criminal,” Gharsalli said.
Thirty-eight people, including at least 18 Britons, were killed in the African nation’s worst-ever attack.
Tributes to slain tourists grow
Britain is to hold a minute’s silence Friday for the one-week anniversary of the attack, the worst for the country since four suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, killed 52 people. Flags were flown at half-staff over Prime Minister David Cameron’s Downing Street office in sympathy with the victims, and amid fears of a heightened risk of attack, Britain is to hold a major emergency response exercise in London over the next two days.
Tributes including flowers with heartfelt messages continue to be laid on the beach where the massacre occurred.
President Barack Obama offered condolences to Tunisian leader Beji Caid Essebsi, after the jihadist attack left the future of the vital tourism sector in doubt.
The White House said Obama spoke to the Tunisian president, offering “condolences and support,” including an offer to help investigate the devastating beach resort attack.
“The president commended the Tunisian people for their commitment to standing strong and united to reject terrorism,” a statement said.
Obama welcomed Essebsi to the White House last month, offering tighter security ties to ensure jihadists do not extinguish the brightest democratic light to emerge from the Arab Spring.
Essebsi in December became the first democratically elected leader in Tunisia’s 60-year history.
Tunisia became the flashpoint of popular revolts across the Middle East in 2011 when a desperately disaffected fruit vendor set himself alight, arousing pent-up anger at failing government and economic hardship.
Since then the North African country has held elections, but also faces rising security threats, including chaos in neighbouring Libya and a March attack on the Bardo National Museum that killed 21 tourists.
“We need the United States, and maybe the United States needs Tunisia now,” Essebsi said during his visit to Washington.