Tunisia Troops Kill Two Gunmen as Alert Level Raised

Tunisian troops killed two suspected foreign militants in an overnight firefight, the government said on Wednesday, after it raised its alert level nationwide in the run-up to a general election.

Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa, who has warned of a "serious terrorist threat" as the October 26 election nears, asked the army to be ready to intervene in towns and cities as he raised the alert level on Tuesday evening.

The patrol killed the two gunmen in a shootout in the Kasserine district of the center-west and preliminary inquiries suggested they were not Tunisian, a joint statement by the interior and defense ministries said.

The troops recovered grenades as well as two Kalashnikov rifles, the statement added.

The authorities have struggled to root out militant groups, some of them Al-Qaida loyalists, who have killed dozens of police and troops since the 2011 revolution that toppled longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, particularly near the Algerian border.