Tunisia extends state of emergency through Jan 2013

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki on Wednesday extended a state of emergency, which grants police special powers of intervention, until February 1, 2013, the official TAP news agency said. "Marzouki decided Wednesday to extend the state of emergency by three months from November 1, 2012," TAP said. The three-month extension was proposed by military and security officials, it added. Extensions of the state of emergency, which has been in place since January 2011, have only been made for 30 days at a time since July. Wednesday's announcement will likely raise fears of a deteriorating security situation in Tunisia, which is still dealing with instability unleashed by the revolution that ousted long-time president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. Tunisia has been shaken in recent weeks by a series of attacks by radical Islamists. On Tuesday, Islamists raided two national guard posts in a Tunis suburb, leading to clashes with security forces that killed one attacker, the interior ministry said. The authorities have vowed to crack down on Islamist violence in the wake of a Salafist-led attack on the US embassy in September in which four assailants were killed.