TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - The radical Islamic State group claimed responsibility Thursday for the attack on a famed Tunis museum that left 23 people dead and scores of tourists wounded, and upended the country's struggling tourism industry.
Defying the extremists, hundreds of Tunisians rallied Thursday at the National Bardo Museum, the site of the attack, stepping around trails of blood and broken glass to proclaim their solidarity with the victims and with Tunisia's fledgling democracy. One person carried a sign saying "Tunisia is bloodied but still standing."
Tunisian security forces arrested nine people, five with alleged direct connections to Wednesday's attack by two gunmen who were later slain by police, the president's office said. The other four suspects arrested in the central part of the country were part of a cell supporting those involved in the attack, the statement said.
Prime Minister Habib Essid told France's RTL radio Tunisia was working with other countries to learn more about the slain attackers, identified as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui. He said Laabidi had been flagged to the intelligence agency, although not for "anything special."
The attack was the worst at a tourist site in Tunisia in more than a decade and prompted a leading Italian cruise ship line to announce it was canceling all stops in the North African nation indefinitely.
The deaths of so many tourists will create massive trouble for Tunisia's tourism industry, which attracts thousands of foreigners every year to the country's Mediterranean beaches, desert oases and ancient Roman ruins - and which had just started to recover after years of decline. Two major cruise ships whose passengers were among the victims quickly left the port of Tunis early Thursday, leaving behind grieving family members and slain passengers.
Razor wire ringed the museum entrance Thursday and security forces guarded major thoroughfares in Tunis, the capital.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in an audio and written statement on jihadi forums and described the museum housing Roman artifacts as a "den of infidels and vice." It celebrated the two attackers as "knights" armed with assault rifles and grenades and promised further strikes.
According to survivors and witnesses, two or more gunmen attacked the museum wielding assault rifles and began gunning down tourists in front of a row of about 10 buses. The attackers then charged inside to take hostages before being killed in a firefight with security forces.
The Health Ministry said the death toll in the attack rose Thursday to 23 people, including 20 foreign tourists, with almost 50 people wounded. Three Tunisians were killed, including two attackers. All the injuries came from bullet wounds.
Dr. Samar Samoud of the health ministry said six of the dead foreigners remained unidentified. She listed the rest of the foreign victims as three Japanese women, three French citizens, a retired Spanish couple, an Australian man, a Colombian woman, a British woman, a Polish man, a Belgian woman and an Italian citizen.