17 tourists dead in Tunisia museum attack,Habib Essid Tunisia, Prime minister said in news conference.

"A policeman and two terrorists were killed," Wataniya 1 television reported. A police source confirmed the death of the policeman to AFP.

But reuters reports that ,Tunisian security forces have freed all the hostages held at a Tunis museum after a militant attack in which at least 11 people were killed, and the rescue operation has ended, a spokesman for the interior ministry said on Wednesday.

Before this update, according to news agency “Gunmen attacked Tunisia's parliament building on, killing at least eight tourists and taking other visitors hostage in a nearby museum, a government official said."

Security forces were surrounding at least two militants in the Bardo museum in central Tunis, a venue that is often packed with foreigners, the interior ministry spokesman added.

Exchanges of gunfire first rang out from parliament around midday, TAP state news agency reported, and witnesses said large bodies of police moved in to try and evacuate the area.

It is reported that 7 of victims are foreign tourist and one member is Tunisians.

Tunisia, whose 2011 uprising against autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali inspired "Arab Spring" revolts in Egypt, Syria and Libya, has up to now largely avoided the chaos and violence that has plagued those countries.

But Tunisia's armed forces have been fighting "Islamist" militants who emerged after the uprising.

Several thousand Tunisians have also left the country to fight for militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and the government is worried about returning "jihadis" carrying out attacks at home