Tunisia police on Saturday arrested 10 suspected extremists of the banned Ansar al-Sharia movement in the northeast of the country triggering clashes with their supporters, the interior ministry said.

Tunisia police on Saturday arrested 10 suspected extremists of the banned Ansar al-Sharia movement in the northeast of the country triggering clashes with their supporters, the interior ministry said.

The arrests took place at dawn in the town of Kef and hours later clashes erupted when supporters of the suspects hurled stones at a police station and set tires ablaze in the area.

Police retaliated by firing tear gas to disperse the assailants, the ministry said without giving any casualty details.

Ansar al-Sharia is Tunisia's main Salafist movement which the authorities have designated a "terrorist organization" with ties to Al-Qaeda.

Around 30 soldiers and policemen have been killed in clashes with jihadists this year, mostly in the Chaambi mountain region along the Algerian border where security forces have been tracking down Qaeda-linked militants.