Tunisia today saw its first deadly attack on foreigners since the 2010-2011 uprising that toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years in power.
But the country that gave birth to the Arab Spring has seen a sharp rise in Islamist militancy which has left dead about 60 police and military personnel.
A timeline of unrest:
17 December 2010
A young university graduate who has only been able to find work as a fruit seller burns himself to death to protest police harassment and unemployment in the central town of Sidi Bouzid, unleashing rioting which spreads across the country. 338 are killed.
14 January 2011
Under massive popular pressure Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia.
25 February 2011
Police stations are attacked as anti-government demonstrations force Ben Ali's last prime minister, Mohamed Ghannouchi, to resign. He is replaced by veteran politician Beji Caid Essebsi.
27-28 October 2011
Violence erupts in Sidi Bouzid after results of Tunisia's first free election are announced, in which the Islamist Ennahda party wins most seats in a constituent assembly.--
11-12 June 2012
Unrest triggered by an art exhibition of work deemed offensive to Islam. The government blames hardline Salafists and old regime loyalists.
14 September 2012
Four attackers killed in clashes at the US embassy amid protests over an anti-Islam film.
27 November - 1 December 2012
300 hurt in clashes between police and protesters in Siliana, southwest of Tunis.
6 February 2013
Prominent opposition leader Chokri Belaid shot dead, triggering deadly protests and a political crisis that brings down Islamist prime minister Hamadi Jebali.
25 July 2013
Opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi is shot dead. In December 2014 jihadists claim both killings.
29 July 2013
Eight soldiers are killed in the Mount Chaambi area near Algeria where Tunisian forces have been hunting an Al-Qaeda-linked group since December.
2 August 2013
The army announces a major operation against Islamist militants in the area.
30 October 2014
A suicide bomber blows himself up on a beach in the resort town of Sousse, leaving no victims, while security forces foil another planned attack nearby.
4 February 2014
The suspected Islamist assassin of Belaid is killed in a police raid, one of seven heavily armed terrorists slain in an operation launched at a house in a Tunis suburb.
13 June 2014
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb says it was responsible for an attack on the interior minister's home that killed four policemen, the first such claim in the country.
16 July 2014
Suspected jihadists kill 15 soldiers in the Mount Chaambi region, in the deadliest such attack in the army's history.
24 October 2014
Police kill six suspected militants, five of them women, in a raid on a suburban house after a 28-hour standoff, fanning tensions ahead of parliamentary polls.
21 December 2014
Essebsi wins Tunisia's first free presidential election.
March 18 2015
Seventeen tourists from Poland, Italy, Germany and Spain are among 21 people killed as gunmen attack a Tunis museum, according to the country's prime minister.
