A soldier at the Boushusha military barracks in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, opened fire on his comrades on Monday morning, Tunisian news agency TAP reported.
The shooting left seven dead, including the gunman and reportedly an army colonel, and left more than a dozen others injured.
Tunisia’s Interior Ministry denied that a terrorist attack took place, according to state-owned Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram.
According to several media outlets, the security forces swiftly reacted, conducting searches of neighbouring buildings and a large-scale deployment of the Ministry of Interior’s Counterterrorism Brigade.
Tunis has been on high alert since the shooting at the Bardo National Museum in March that left 24 dead, among them 20 tourists, shaking Tunisia’s vital tourism industry.
Tunisia is considered to be a rare example of a successful transition to democracy after the 2011 uprising saw the withdrawal of long-time dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali from politics. The 2014 election saw a peaceful transition of power from the Islamist Ennahda party to the secularist Nidaa Tounes party.
Tunisia has so far largely been spared from the chaos and violence in neighbouring Libya and other countries of the Arab uprisings, and has remained relatively peaceful.
