15 injured in Tunisia clashes

Around 15 protesters were injured in the Tunisian capital on Friday as police cleared out the Kasbah district, where hundreds of people had been camped out for the last five days, RTE News reported.

'I counted around 15 injured, some of them with trauma injuries,' a doctor who treated some of the wounded told Tunisian news agency TAP.

Oualid Aloui, a spokesman for the demonstrators, confirmed that 15 people had been hurt.

Clashes broke out in Tunis as police broke up a protest camp outside the prime minister's offices, firing warning shots and tear gas as protesters threw stones in the city centre.

Riot police and hundreds of protesters fought running battles in streets that had returned to their normal bustle for the first time since the removal president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on 14 January.

The clashes quickly cleared cafes on Avenue Bourguiba, Tunis's main thoroughfare.

The government announced a new cabinet line-up yesterday that removed key figures associated with Ben Ali's ousted regime but the protest camp had remained in place, calling on Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi to quit.