TUNIS // The prime minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, resigned yesterday, as security forces clashed with protesters in Tunis demanding the removal of some ministers of his interim government.
"I have decided to quit as prime minister," Mr Ghannouchi told a news conference. He said he thought carefully before taking the decision which was supported by his family. "I am not running away from responsibility. This is to open the way for a new prime minister."
"I am not ready to be the person who takes decisions that would end up causing casualties," Mr Ghannouchi said. "This resignation will serve Tunisia, and the revolution and the future of Tunisia," he said.
The interim president, Foued Mebazaa, said Beji Caid Essebsi, a former minister, would be the new premier.
Earlier police fired tear gas and warning shots on the capital's central Habib Bourguiba avenue to disperse stone-throwing youths on a third day of violence.
Security forces acted to stop protesters, who were chanting anti-government slogans, from reaching the interior ministry, according to media reports.
Rampaging youths hurled rocks at buildings to break the windows and threw up barricades to impede the police who were not able to disperse them.
Three people were killed when an anti-government protest in Tunis on Saturday turned violent as riot police and masked police in civilian clothes fired warning shots and tear gas at hundreds of protesters.
Demonstrators were demanding the removal from the interim government of members of the regime of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, whose toppling on January 14 after weeks of protests sparked similar uprising across the Arab world.
The interior ministry said the three who died on Saturday were among a dozen wounded, with several members of the security forces also hurt in the clashes.
More than 100 people were arrested for involvement in the unrest on Saturday and 88 people after a demonstration on Friday, it said, blaming the violence on "agitators" who infiltrated peaceful demonstrators.
The ministry also said that these agitators had used high school students as "human shields to commit acts of violence, arson to spread terror among the population and targeting the security forces".
In the biggest of several rallies against the transitional authority, about 100,000 protesters marched down the capital's main avenue on Friday shouting slogans, including against Mr Ghannouchi, who was in Mr Ben Ali's government.
Clashes left 21 police officers injured and three police stations damaged, the interior ministry said.
