TUNIS: Tunisian troops killed a gunman and captured three others on Sunday after they attacked soldiers guarding ballot papers for the country’s presidential vote, the defence ministry said.

The pre-dawn attack targeted a school in the central region of Kairouan where the ballot papers had been stored under army guard.

“The vigilance of the soldiers and the swiftness of their response thwarted this operation and led to the death of a man armed with a hunting rifle and the arrest of three suspects,” ministry spokesman Belhassan Oueslati said.

One soldier and one suspect suffered minor wounds, he added.

Oueslati said he did not believe that jihdadists, who had called for a boycott of Sunday’s landmark election runoff and threatened to target the political establishment, were behind the attack. “Generally, the terrorists don’t use hunting rifles,” he said.

Published in Dawn December 22th , 2014