Former Interior Minister Rafik Belhaj Kassim was arrested in his hometown of Beja, about 60 miles west of Tunis, the capital, a day after the arrest of Ali Seriati, chief of the presidential guard, state television reported. Both men led security apparatuses seen as tools of repression under the former regime. Ben Ali led this North African country for 23 years before he was ousted in an uprising driven by disaffected youths clamoring for economic opportunities and political freedom.
Talks between former opponents of the regime and the interim government led by Fouad Mebazaa yielded an agreement that no major figure from the former ruling party would be included in the temporary Cabinet overseeing the state's affairs until elections are held in 60 days, said Mahmoud ben Romdhane, a leader of Renewal, an opposition party.
"It's finished," he said of Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally, or RCD. "The RCD is completely destroyed."
The outcome of the uprising, sparked by the self-immolation last month of a 26-year-old man frustrated and humiliated by his economic prospects, carries enormous weight in a politically ossified Arab world. Ben Ali's popular overthrow has inspired hopes that other people will topple entrenched Arab regimes stretching from North Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
Frustrated reformers throughout the region hope the Tunisia uprising will serve as a warning for autocrats as well as a possible model for their own countries.
But as dusk settled Sunday and a 6 p.m. curfew took hold, the center of this capital resembled a war zone, with helicopters circling overhead, automatic weapon fire erupting and panicked police officers and soldiers hustling passersby into doorways for protection. Police officers said pitched battles were taking place between security forces and alleged supporters of Ben Ali's rule. The clashes continued into the early evening, with rumors of snipers positioned on rooftops fueling paranoia.
Police could be seen frenetically chasing after suspicious persons in the warren of streets near the city center. Pan-Arab and local television stations were filled with reports of arrests of armed men said to be close to the former regime, including in Tunisia's second-largest city, Sfax.
In neighborhoods of the capital and surrounding suburbs, citizen militias staffed by young men wielding makeshift clubs or even swords had established checkpoints and blocked off streets to protect their neighborhoods, calling police and army officers and even radio stations at signs of trouble.
"It's the people protecting their country, not the military, not the police," said Adel, a 46-year-old taxi driver from the Tunis neighborhood of Ibn Khaldun who declined to give his last name. "We are afraid people are going to loot our neighborhoods."
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