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 The attack on the Imperial Marhaba beach hotel in the popular
resort town of Sousse came just months after militants attacked the
Bardo museum in Tunis, killing 21 people and delivering a blow to
the vital tourism industry.
Investigators were verifying whether the gunman, student Saif
Rezgui, had received militant training in a jihadist camp across in
Libya. Authorities have also arrested three others for helping to
plan the attack, a security source said.
"Investigations show Saif Rezgui was in contact with terrorists in
Libya and he likely trained in a Libyan camp," an official source
told Reuters.
Libya, caught in a multi-sided battle between two rival governments
and their armed factions, has become a target for Islamic State
supporters and other jihadist groups who have taken advantage of the
security chaos.
The two gunmen who carried out the March attack on the Bardo had
also clandestinely crossed into Libya for training late last year,
investigators said. Rezgui had taken out his passport last year, but
there were no exit stamps in it, officials said.
 The Sousse attacker, who had shown little sign of radicalization by
fundamentalist Islamist recruiters, was shot dead by police outside
the hotel.
Tunisia's health ministry said on Tuesday it had so far identified
27 bodies from Friday's gun attack, including 19 British, three
Irish, one Belgian, two German, a Russian citizen and a Portuguese
national.
The massacre was the worst of its kind in Tunisia, one of the Arab
world's most secular countries, which has been praised for its
transition to democracy after a 2011 uprising.
HUGE LOSSES
Tunisia expects to lose at least $515 million this year, or about a
quarter of its estimated annual tourism earnings, following last
Friday's attack.
"The attack had a great impact on the economy, the losses will be
large," Tourism Minister Salma Loumi told reporters late on Monday,
giving a preliminary estimate from the Sousse attack.
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The North African country earned $1.95 billion in revenues from
tourism last year. The sector makes up seven percent of its gross
domestic product and is a major source of foreign currency and
employment for Tunisia.
Loumi said the government planned to end a visitors' tax and also to
review debt relief for hotel operators as ways to help sustain the
industry.
The government has said 1,000 more armed tourism police will patrol
hotels and tourism sites and the army reserves will also be drafted
in to beef up protection.
Praised for its new constitution, free elections and politics of
compromise after the 2011 uprising to oust autocrat Zine El-Abidine
Ben Ali, Tunisia has also struggled with the rise of fundamentalist
Islamist movements that flourished in the early turmoil.
Some of those groups turned to violence and Tunisia's armed forces
have been fighting occasional skirmishes with local Islamist
militants near the border with Algeria.
But more than 3,000 Tunisians have also left to fight for militant
Islamist groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and some have threatened
to return to carry out attacks in their homeland.
(writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Gareth Jones and Sophie
Walker)
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