Tunisia Attack: Gunmen kill at least 27 people in attack on Sousse Beach

NBC News – Gunmen opened fire on a beach popular with tourists in Tunisia on Friday, killing at least 27 people, the country's interior ministry said.

Tunisia's Interior Ministry told NBC News that most of the victims were foreigners and that at least six people had been injured in the attack on the beaches of Sousse. The ministry said that one gunman had been killed and a second captured following a security-forces operation in the popular seaside resort.

The deadly assault came just hours after an apparent terror attack on a factory in France. French President Francois Hollande telephoned Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi to express solidarity in light of the Sousse attack, according to Hollande's office.

The nationalities of the victims were not immediately clear, but Sousse is popular with German and British nationals.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier condemned the "cowardly assassination attack against tourists" but said he did not know if any of his countrymen were among the victims.

Gary Pine, a product manager from the U.K., told NBC News he was one of dozens of vacationers on the beach when the attack took place not far from his hotel, the El Mouradi Palm Marina.

He said he initially thought he was hearing firecrackers but that "it was only when you could hear the bullets whizzing through the air that we realized it was gunfire." His 22-year-old son saw one person get shot, Pine added.

He said guests started running off the beach and were told to go to their rooms by hotel staff, he said. Some guests ran back out onto the beach to get their room keys, he added.

British holidaymaker Karen Hillman said she was near her hotel's pool when other guests started rushing toward the building "like a stampede." She said: "Everyone was told to get inside the hotel and into the rooms."

The entertainment manager at the hotel, who only gave his first name, Hamouda, said guests had told him two gunmen "came from the sea" and attacked the beach. He confirmed that staff had told guests to hide in their rooms.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which occurred during the holy month of Ramadan.

Sousse, some 150 kilometers from Tunis, is a popular resort for both Tunisians and Europeans.

The violence had an almost immediate impact on the country's tourism industry, which has been struggling in wake of a deadly terror attack in March which left several tourists dead.

Belgian airline Jetairfly said on Twitter that one of its Boeing 737s en route from Brussels had turned back "due to current terrorist attack." The aircraft had been due to land in the Tunisian town of Enfidha, about 25 miles north of Sousse, before it turned around more than halfway into its journey.

In March, an attack on Tunisia's National Bardo Museum left 22 people — mainly foreigners — dead. ISIS purportedly claimed responsibility for the assault, in which Japanese, Polish, Italian and Spanish nationals were killed, before two of the assailants were died in a firefight with police.

Tunisia has been held up as a rare example of democracy being successfully delivered after the Arab Spring of 2011.

The country's warm weather, beaches, historic culture and nightlife have made it a popular holiday destination for Europeans, with 7 million tourists arriving each year, according to Lonely Planet.