( CNN ) Wednesday 's terrorist attack , which killed 23 people , hit Tunisia where it hurt by targeting its flourishing tourism industry . The deadly attack on the prominent Bardo Museum near Tunisia 's parliament in the country 's capital , Tunis , is the latest instance of an armed assault carried out by gunmen willing to fight to the death , a tactic that has been widely adopted by jihadist terrorists in recent years , including in North Africa . Such attacks mimic the 2008 Mumbai assaults in which 10 gunmen from Pakistan went on a rampage in the massive Indian port city . They took hostages and killed more than 160 people over a three-day period , in an attack that drew sustained global TV coverage . The gunmen attacked iconic Mumbai targets such as the Taj hotel , which is frequented by Westerners . The Mumbai gunmen embarked on their attack knowing that it was a `` fedayeen '' mission -- meaning `` those who sacrifice themselves '' -- and that they would probably fight to the death . Only one gunman survived . In this week 's Tunisia attack , the gunmen took hostages , two gunmen died in the assault , and three survived and are being hunted by the Tunisian government . Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid said the attackers at the Bardo Museum had specifically targeted tourists to hurt the country 's economy . This seems a likely outcome of the attack , as tourism is vital to Tunisia 's economy , providing 15 % of GDP . Tunisia is also the only country where the Arab Spring produced a successful , lasting democratic transition , making it attractive to tourists who are avoiding going to countries like Egypt , which did not weather the Arab Spring as well as Tunisia . Already , some tour companies are canceling excursions to Tunis . In January , in Tunisia 's neighbor Libya , the local branch of ISIS mounted a similar attack on the upscale Corinthia Hotel in the capital , Tripoli . Two gunmen , one of them a Tunisian , killed 10 people , including an American . Both gunmen died in the attack . This attack served ISIS ' purposes of sowing greater instability in Libya and expunging Western influence from the country , as the hotel was where many foreign businessmen stayed . A senior US official told one of us that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that jihadist terrorist groups such as ISIS now control a twelfth of the landmass of Libya , which is one of the largest countries on the African continent . This is a sobering finding for Tunisia , which had been largely immune from the kinds of terrorist attacks that have recently plagued Libya and other North African countries . While the museum attack in Tunisia and the hotel attack in Libya may help terrorist groups to achieve their strategic goals , more often than not , armed assaults by terrorists against so-called soft targets such as hotels , supermarkets and malls do not achieve much beyond the tactical successes of global news coverage and causing mayhem . In September 2013 , Al-Shabaab , the Somali al Qaeda affiliate , killed 67 people in a fedayeen-style armed assault on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi , Kenya . Four gunmen carried out the attack , which unspooled over a four-day period . The Westgate attack received much global news coverage and was designed to put pressure on the Kenyan government , which had sent troops to Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab . However , a year and a half after the attack on the mall , Al-Shabaab continues to lose territory in Somalia , and the Kenyan military has continued to battle the terrorist group . The plague of Mumbai-style armed assaults by jihadist terrorists is not confined to Africa . In January , Mumbai-style tactics were used in Paris when Cherif and Said Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly conducted armed assaults on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket over a three-day period . All three gunmen were killed . In a videotape , Coulibaly said ISIS inspired him . The Paris attacks received considerable coverage around the world but had no impact on France 's willingness to continue its involvement in coalition airstrikes against ISIS .
Tunisia weathered the Arab Spring and has been buoyed by its tourism industry . The country is also a major transit point for migrants from North Africa who are trying to reach Europe via Libya or Italy.