On 26 June 2015, a mass shooting occurred at the tourist resort at Port El Kantaoui, about 10 kilometres north of the city of Sousse, Tunisia.

[11] After the overthrow of Tunisian president Ben Ali, terrorism increased, leading to 60 victims among security and military troops.

[16] However, the Tunisian government blamed a local splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, called the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade, for the attack.

[12] On 26 June 2015 the Spanish-owned five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel at Port El Kantaoui, a tourist complex situated on the coast about ten kilometres north of Sousse, Tunisia, was hosting 565 guests, mainly from Western Europe, 77% of its capacity.

[18][39][40][41] The killer, Seifiddine Rezgui Yacoubi, also known as Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani,[42] (29 August 1992 – 26 June 2015[43]) was a 22-year-old electrical engineering student at University of Kairouan from Gaâfour, in northwest Tunisia.

[46] Rezgui is thought to have been recruited by Ajnad al-Khilafah,[47] an outgrowth of the Tunisian branch of Ansar al-Sharia, which was founded by Seifallah Ben Hassine, who had lived in the UK in the 1990s and whose mentor during that time was Abu Qatada.

[48] High Court papers relating to a control order placed on a British-based suspect state that Ben Hassine "aimed to recruit new members and send them to Afghanistan for training".

When Ansar was finally outlawed in August 2013, after the murders of two secular leftist MPs, he was listed as a proscribed terrorist by the United States, and he fled to Libya.

The confessions say al-Sandi ran a militant cell responsible for both the Sousse shootings and the attack three months earlier at the Bardo National Museum in which 22 people died.

[citation needed] The United Kingdom's Home Secretary Theresa May and Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood visited the site of the shooting on 29 June 2015.

[64] Between 1 and 4 July the bodies of all thirty British nationals killed in the attacks were flown from Tunisia to RAF Brize Norton.

[65][66][67][68] On 2 July David Cameron and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon began making calls for airstrikes in Syria, believing the Sousse attacks to have been coordinated from there.

[69] On 3 July, the UK held a nationwide minute's silence at 12:00 local time to remember the victims of the attacks as government buildings and Buckingham Palace flew the Union Jack at half-mast.

[67] Two British tourists, Allen Pembroke and Paul Short, were awarded the Queen's Commendation for Bravery in the 2017 Birthday Honours for aiding victims of the attack while it was still underway.

A security team close to the attack and armed with assault rifles and wearing protective vests, retreated to wait for reinforcements for a half an hour, during which time the lone gunman killed the 38 victims.

[74] The trial, involving more than 50 witnesses and experts, was heard in private due to the evidence being considered sensitive for security reasons.

[75] Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi called for a global strategy against terrorism[76] and visited Sousse with Prime Minister Habib Essid,[22] who promised to close 80 mosques within the week.

[79] Essid announced new anti-terrorism measures, including the deployment of reserve troops to reinforce security at "sensitive sites ... and places that could be targets of terrorist attacks."

If passed, the bill would allow law enforcement and security services to tap phone calls of individuals suspected of terrorism.

ABTA and travel organisations First Choice, TUI and Thomson have stated that they plan to send no further British tourists to Tunisia until after 31 October 2015.