Chaos and gunfire as Islamic State militants storm Tunisia museum

[caption id=“attachment_2163871” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  Police officers are seen outside parliament in Tunis March 18, 2015. Gunmen attacked Tunisia’s national museum near its parliament on Wednesday, killing at least seven tourists and taking others hostage inside the building, the government said. Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2163873” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  Police officers and a journalist run outside the parliament in Tunis March 18, 2015. Gunmen in military uniforms stormed Tunisia’s national museum, killing 17 foreign tourists and two Tunisians on Wednesday in one of the worst militant attacks in a country that has largely escaped the region’s “Arab Spring” turmoil. Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2163875” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  A bus damaged by an attack by gunmen on Tunisia’s national museum is seen in Tunis. Islamic State militants called it “the first drop of the rain”: Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2163877” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  Police officers are seen outside parliament in Tunis March 18, 2015. Japanese, Italian, Spanish and British visitors, as well as three Tunisians, were among the victims of the attack, which took place in the heavily guarded parliament compound: Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2163879” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  A damaged bus is seen after an attack by gunmen on Tunisia’s national museum in Tunis March 18, 2015: Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2163881” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  An injured tourist is wheeled on a stretcher. The IS assault – the most deadly attack involving foreigners in Tunisia since a 2002 suicide bombing in Djerba – came at a fragile moment for a country just emerging to full democracy after its pioneering popular uprising four years ago: Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2163883” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  Police officers are seen on the pavement outside parliament in Tunis March 18, 2015. Islamic State praised the two attackers in an audio recording as “knights of the Islamic State” armed with machineguns and bombs: Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2163885” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  Tourists who survived by an attack by gunmen on Tunisia’s national museum. Tunisians make up the one of the largest contingents of foreign fighters in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and their homeland’s young democracy, which has cracked down on militancy at home, was a clear potential target. Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2163889” align=“aligncenter” width=“940”]  “We tell the apostates who sit on the chest of Muslim Tunisia: Wait for the glad tidings of what will harm you, o impure ones, for what you have seen today is the first drop of the rain,” the Islamic State audio said in Arabic.[/caption]