Cameron warns fight against Islamic State ‘struggle of our generation’

British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that the fight against Islamic State is “the struggle of our generation”, following an attack on a Tunisian beach that killed over 30 British tourists.

Cameron told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the “absolutely horrific” attack had “shocked the whole world” and warned that IS poses an “existential threat” to the West.

He said that IS could be beaten but that it would take “a very long time” and that the UK must have a “full-spectrum response” to their threat.

British Home Secretary Theresa May will travel to Tunisia today to meet ministers and people caught up in the attack and an RAF C17 transport plane would be sent to the North African country to help evacuate casualties to the UK.

38 people were killed on a beach near Sousse on Friday by a gunman with links to Islamic State. Three Irish people, a Belgian, a German, and a number of Tunisians were also killed and at least 36 people were injured. A number of British tourists remain missing.

Met Police detectives are helping the investigation into the deadliest single terrorist attack on British people since the death of 52 people in the London bombings of 2005.

Around 3,500 British tourists have flown home from Tunisia since the attack. Thomas Cook said that anyone booked to travel there up until 12 July could cancel if they wished, and anyone due to travel before 31 October could amend their trip, including changing to another country.

"We brought in additional staff immediately from Turkey and deployed them in our resorts,” Thomas Cook’s UK Managing director Samean Sayed said. “We have also deployed the maximum number of people we could over the weekend in our contact centres in the UK.”

The Tunisian authorities have said that the gunman, 23-year-old Seifeddine Rezgui, probably had help in carrying out the attack.

Tunisian interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said that Rezgui’s accomplices probably provided him with a Kalashnikov assault rifle to Rezgui and helped him get to the scene.

He said that the attacker's father and three friends he lived with in Kairouan, where he studied, have been detained for questioning.

The British Foreign Office has updated its travel advice to earn that further attacks in Tunisia are possible, and urged people to be vigilant.