TUNIS: A raid by Tunisian security forces on an armed group near the capital Friday left six suspected militants dead, including five women, fanning tensions days ahead of a landmark election.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and police will be deployed for Sunday’s parliamentary polls — the first since an uprising three years ago that inspired the Arab Spring revolutions.

The authorities have expressed fears that “terrorists” will seek to disrupt the vote.

Militants suppressed under former strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali have proliferated since his overthrow in 2011.

The militants have been blamed for a wave of attacks, including last year’s assassination of two leftist politicians whose murders plunged the country into a protracted political crisis. A gunman was among the dead in Friday’s raid on a house in a suburb of Tunis, while another was hospitalized along with two children, interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told reporters at the scene.

He said one of the children, a girl, had suffered a head injury, without elaborating.

Authorities had earlier demanded that the children and women be allowed to leave the house, giving the gunmen an ultimatum to surrender.

“Special forces approached the kitchen where the terrorists were hiding,” Aroui said.