A woman blew herself up Monday afternoon in the center of Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, injuring at least nine people, the Tunisian interior ministry spokesperson told CNN.
The suicide bomber, a 30-year-old woman who was not previously known to authorities, detonated near a police patrol, wounding eight security personnel and one civilian, the interior ministry said in a statement.
The bomber was the only person killed in the explosion, which struck near a theater on Habib Bourguiba avenue, one of the city’s central thoroughfares, at 1:55 p.m. local time (8:55 a.m. ET).
A state of emergency has been in effect for Tunisia since a spate of terror attacks rocked the country in 2015. Tunisia’s presidency announced an extension of the nationwide state of emergency earlier this month, amid a tense political atmosphere.
One of the most recent large-scale attacks to hit Tunisia came in March 2016, when scores of militants launched an assault on a military barracks near the country’s border with Libya.