Four Tunisian policemen were killed on Tuesday in what the government labeled a "terrorist attack" in a region known as the base for the country's most dangerous Islamist group.
"On February 18, following a terrorist attack in Boulaaba in the governorate of Kasserine, four heroes of the National Guard were martyred," the interior ministry said in statement, without giving further details.
Boulaaba is part of a mountain range on the Algerian border which is home to Tunisia's main jihadist group, the al-Qaeda linked Phalange Okba Ibn Nafaa.
The group was blamed for an attack which killed 15 Tunisian soldiers in July while dozens of soldiers and police have been killed or wounded in ambushes by the Islamist fighters and landmines.
Tunisia's armed forces have carried out ground and air campaigns against the group since 2012 without success.
Earlier this month, a secular-led coalition government that includes Islamists took office in Tunisia, three months after the North African state's first free parliamentary elections.
Besides the threat of an Islamist insurgency, the government faces a delicate balancing act. While international lenders want it to curb high public spending, including by cutting politically sensitive subsidies on basic foods and fuel, many Tunisians fret over living costs and the economic outlook.
Prime Minister Habib Essid, who took the oath of office Friday in front of President Beji Caid Essebsi, vowed to fight for greater democracy and greater regional stability, four years after a revolution ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and against rampant unemployment.
