TUNIS: A mentally deranged Tunisian soldier seized a gun at a barracks on Monday and killed seven comrades before being shot dead.

The Interior Ministry said the rampage was not linked to “terrorism,” but a Defense Ministry spokesman did not rule this out before an investigation reports on the incident.

Defense ministry spokesman Belhassen Oueslati said the corporal, whose name was not given, “had family and psychological problems.”

Because of this, he had been “forbidden from carrying arms” and given “non-sensitive duties.”

“He attacked one man with a knife and took his gun before shooting at his comrades who were saluting the flag,” Oueslati said.

The incident “caused the deaths of seven soldiers and also of the shooter. Ten soldiers were wounded, and one is in a serious condition.”

The shooting was at the Bouchoucha barracks in Tunis, not far from Parliament and the Bardo National Museum where gunmen killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman in March. It triggered a security alert.

The Interior Ministry’s elite Counterterrorism Brigade deployed in force across the area.