Tourists gunned down on Tunisia beach
Sousse, Tunisia, 26 Jun - (ANA) - Gunmen have killed at least 27 people in an attack on two hotels at a popular holiday destination in Tunisia. Militants, feared to be from ISIS, exchanged gunfire with security services on a beach packed with British holidaymakers. The attack took place at the Al-Qantawi resort in the city of Sousse, around 140 kilometres south of the capital Tunis on the Mediterranean coast. Local media have reported that those killed were mostly German and British tourists. The body of one gunman lay at the scene with a Kalashnikov assault rifle after he was shot in an exchange of gunfire with police, it has been reported. The hotels attacked are understood to be the Imperial Marhaba and the Soviva. British tourist Gary Pine told Sky News said: 'We thought fire crackers were going off but you could see quite quickly what was going on. 'There was a mass exodus off the beach. My son was in the sea at the time and myself and my wife were shouting at him to get out and as he ran up he said I've just saw someone get shot.  'One attacker opened fire with a Kalashnikov on tourists and Tunisians on the beach of the hotel', said a hotel worker at the site.  'It was just one attacker. He was a young guy dressed in shorts like he was a tourist himself.' Elizabeth O'Brien, an Irish woman on holiday with her two sons in the resort, described how she grabbed her children and ran for their lives when they heard gunfire erupting from one of the hotels. Shesaid: 'We were on the beach. My sons were in the sea and I just got out of the sea. 'It was about 12 o'clock and I just looked up about 500 metres from me and I saw a (hot air) balloon collapse down, then rapid firing, then I saw two of the people who were going to go up in the balloon start to run towards me - because I thought it was fireworks. 'So, I thought "oh my God, it sounds like gunfire", so I just ran to the sea to my children and grabbed our things and as I was running towards the hotel. 'The waiters and the security on the beach started saying "run, run run!" and we just ran to our room, which is like a little bungalow. So we are actually trapped in our room.' The British Government's emergency Cobra committee will meet this afternoon following the attack in Tunisia and another one in France where a man was decapitated at a gas factory by terrorists carrying Islamist banners. (ANA)

FA/ANA/26 June 2015----------