Gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed Tunisia's national museum on Wednesday, killing at least 18 foreign tourists and three Tunisians in one of the worst militant attacks in a country that had largely escaped the region's Arab Spring turmoil.
Prime Minister Habib Essid initially said five Japanese as well as visitors from Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain were among the dead in the noon assault on Bardo National Museum inside the heavily guarded parliament compound in central Tunis.
Scores of visitors fled into the museum and the militants, whom authorities did not immediately identify, took hostages inside, officials said.