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Tens of thousands of Tunisians marched in support of their embattled government as opposition protesters renewed calls for the Islamist-led administration to step down, heightening a crisis that was sparked by a political assassination.
The ruling Ennahda party claimed that 200,000 people turned out in Kasbah square in the capital Tunis on Saturday night although police offered no figures and some reporters on the scene estimated the number at tens of thousands.
The protest, by far the biggest yet staged in support of the government since the crisis erupted, attracted a wide range of people including several families, waving Tunisian and Ennahda flags but also symbols of the Salafist movement.
The crowd chanted slogans including "legitimacy", "the people want Ennahda" and "God is greatest" in support of the ruling party which organised the rally in response to growing calls for it to step aside.
Ennahda party leader Rashid Ghannouchi told the crowd: "Those who thought that the Egyptian scenario could be repeated here were all wrong."
Meanwhile, several thousand opposition demonstrators also staged what have become nightly rallies. Both rallies passed off peacefully.
Tunisia has been gripped by a political crisis since the assassination in February of opposition politician Chokri Belaid. The crisis was further stoked by the killing of Mohamed Brahmi, who was shot dead outside his home in a Tunis suburb on July 25.
Ennahda has rejected mounting calls from its detractors who are urging it to quit for failing to prevent the murders of Belaid and Brahmi, and for its inability to rein in radical Islamists.
At a news conference earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Ali Laareydh stressed the need for "national unity" and reiterated his government would not quit.
His party, which emerged victorious in the October 2011 elections, has proposed to enlarge the coalition government.
Meanwhile, Tunisia said its forces killed a "terror" suspect in a dawn raid yesterday and separately foiled a political assassination, like the one that has plunged the country into crisis.
The interior ministry said the dawn raid targeted a house in the southern Tunis suburb of Ouardia where a group of "key terror" suspects was hiding.
"One of the members of the group was eliminated in an exchange of fire, and four were arrested," the ministry said in a statement that did not spell out why the suspects were wanted. Overnight, the ministry said police foiled a new bid to assassinate a political figure and that two "very dangerous terrorists" had been arrested and guns and grenades seized.
The ministry did not identify the target of the plot but said it took place in Sousse, 140 kilometres south of Tunis, on Friday.
Police traded fire with gunmen after searching a house in the area, and a third suspect fled.
The raid came as the army stepped up an offensive launched in December in Mount Chaambi, near the Algerian border, against al-Qaeda-linked militants.
Larayedh refused to give details of the operation, but an armed forces spokesman said it involved ground and air units.
"A huge operation, with ground and air units, was launched at dawn to clean up the mountain" area, spokesman Taoufik Rahmouni told Tunisian media on Friday.
The army has come under a spate of attack since April and Rahmouni said the operation would continue until Islamist militants "are eradicated."


Huge Tunisia rally in support of government

Supporters of the Islamist Ennahda party wave flags during a rally in Kasbah Square in Tunis supporting the government. Photo: EPA

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Key support for embattled Tunisia government, but opposition protesters demand it step aside


Tens of thousands of Tunisians marched in support of their embattled government as opposition protesters renewed calls for the Islamist-led administration to step down, heightening a crisis that was sparked by a political assassination.
