A man set himself on fire Tuesday in central Tunis, an AFP reporter witnessed, hours before the country's lawmakers were to vote on a new government tasked with pulling Tunisia out of a deep political crisis. "This is a young man who sells cigarettes because of unemployment," shouted the man before immolating himself on Habib Bourguiba avenue in front of the municipal building, according to a witness. "Allahu Akbar! (God is greatest!)" said the badly burned man who was still conscious as he was rushed to hospital by emergency services, the witness said.

Two Tunisian police were wounded in an exchange of gunfire with presumed Salafists on Thursday in Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the country's uprising two years ago, a medical source said. The shooting took place when police after a chase cornered four armed men in a mosque in the centre of the town, which is a stronghold of the ultra-conservative Muslim group blamed for unrest around the country. An interior ministry spokesman said only one policeman had been hurt.

(Adds details on body being moved through Tunis) TUNIS, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Tunisian police fired teargas to disperse protesters demonstrating in the capital outside the Interior Ministry against the killing of a prominent secular opposition politician on Wednesday, witnesses said. Police fired the teargas as an ambulance carrying Chokri Belaid's body approached Tunis's main street, where protesters had massed outside the ministry, they said.

Tunisian police on Wednesday fired tear gas at protesters trying to storm their headquarters in the central town of Sidi Bouzid, birthplace of the 2011 revolution, after the murder of a prominent opposition figure. Some 200 protesters attacked the police station and policemen fired tear gas in response, an AFP correspondent said. The army then intervened to calm the crowd in this marginalised town in central Tunisia that has suffered ongoing unrest since the mass uprising that ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. str-alf/bsh/sma/hkb