Fauque Nicolas / Abaca

In a protest in Tunis on Saturday, hundreds of demonstrators demanded that the Islamist party in power find and arrest the killer of secular opposition politician Chokri Belaid.

TUNIS — A hardline Islamist has been arrested in connection with the killing of a Tunisian opposition politician whose death earlier this month touched off protests across the country, a security source said on Monday.

Tunisia was plunged into political crisis when the secular opposition politician Chokri Belaid was gunned down outside his house on Feb. 6, igniting the biggest street protests since the overthrow of strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali two years ago.

"The police arrested a Salafist suspected of killing Belaid,'' the source told Reuters without giving more details.

Last year, Salafist groups prevented several concerts and plays from taking place in Tunisian cities, saying they violated Islamic principles. Salafists also ransacked the U.S. Embassy in September during international protests over an Internet video.

Tunisian radio station Express FM cited a senior security official as saying police had arrested three Salafists, including a police officer, in connection with Belaid's killing.

Abd Majid Belaid, brother of the victim, said he could not confirm or deny the report. The Ministry of Interior and Justice was not available for comment.

Interior Minister Ali Larayedh said last week that arrests had been made but gave no details.

"The investigation has not led yet to identify the killer, those behind the murder and its motives,'' he said.

Secular groups have accused the Islamist-led government of a lax response to attacks by ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamists on cinemas, theatres, bars and individuals in recent months.

After Belaid's killing — Tunisia's first such political assassination in a decade - Hamadi Jebali resigned as prime minister after he failed to form a cabinet of technocrats to take Tunisia to elections in a bid to restore calm.

Tunisia's President Moncef Marzouki has asked Interior Minister Ali Larayedh to form a new government.

The so-called Jasmine Revolution that toppled Ben Ali in January 2011 was the first of the Arab Spring revolutions.

Tunisia's political transition has been more peaceful than those in other Arab nations such as Egypt, Libya and Syria, but tensions are running high between Islamists elected to power and liberals who fear the loss of hard-won liberties.

AP

French police officers stand guard at the entrance of a building in Strasbourg, France, Saturday where a suspect was shot dead after firing at police.

French authorities raided homes in cities across France on Saturday, arresting 11 terror suspects and killing one who reportedly first opened fire on police.

"A vast anti-terrorist operation was conducted this morning," Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins told a news conference.

The suspects arrested in various French cities were affiliated with a Salafist movement and believed to constitute a jihadist cell, Molins said.

He identified the man who was shot and killed by police in Strasbourg after he fired on them, lightly wounding three, as Jeremie Sidney, 33.

Molins described Sidney as a French national who recently converted to Islam after spending two years in prison for drug dealing.

"Jeremie Sidney appeared to be a delinquent converted to radical Islam who belonged to a group suspected, without certainty, to want to enter into jihad," Molins said.

French authorities say Sidney’s fingerprints match those on a grenade that was tossed into a Jewish kosher market in Sarcelles, a Paris suburb, on Sept. 19.

Police had been preparing for Saturday’s operation for weeks as result of the investigation of the attack in Sarcelles.

The people arrested were between the ages of 19 and 25, The Associated Press reported.

In the house raids carried out in the Paris region, Strasbourg, Cannes and Nice, authorities found arms, large amounts of money and four wills, suggesting the suspects may have been planning an attack.

A statement from President Francois Hollande praised the police for the raids and said the state would continue to "protect the French against all terrorist threats."

The Sarcelles attack took place on the same day that a French satirical paper published crude caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and while anti-Western protests were growing against an anti-Islam film.

NBC News' Nancy Ing, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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