Clashes broke out between Salafists and police on Sunday after Salafist movement Ansar Al-Sharia told its followers to gather "in large numbers" near Tunis for its annual congress, defying a government ban.

Clashes broke out between Salafists and police on Sunday after Salafist movement Ansar Al-Sharia told its followers to gather "in large numbers" near Tunis for its annual congress, defying a government ban.

Hundreds of Salafists erected barricades in the streets of Ettadhamen, a poor neighborhood 15 kilometers west of Tunis, and hurled rocks at police, who responded with tear gas, an AFP journalist reported.

Clashes also took place in Kairouan, the historic city south of Tunis, where the annual congress had been due to take place before it was banned on security grounds, and where security forces were deployed to prevent Salafists defying the ban.

“We call on our brothers to gather in large numbers in the Ettadhamen district of the capital," the Salafist group said on its official Facebook page, a decision confirmed by one of the group's senior members.

“Our congress is being held in Ettadhamen," Sami Essid told AFP.

The announcement came after the security forces deployed heavily in and around Kairouan, with checkpoints set up at entrances to the city and special units positioned in the square facing the Okba Ibn Nafaa mosque where the congress was to be held.

Ansar Al-Sharia's spokesman Seifeddine Rais was arrested at dawn on Sunday as he went jogging in front of police, according to a police source, who described his behavior as a “provocation”.