Suspected associates of the gunman who carried out the Tunisian beach massacre have been arrested.
The country’s interior minister Najem Gharsalli said a “significant number” of individuals were detained.
A total of 38 people, including up to 30 Britons, died after Kalashnikov-wielding student Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire in the resort of Sousse on Friday.
News of the arrests came as the official toll of UK deaths rose to 18, Downing Street said all British nationals injured would be returned within the next 24 hours and Home Secretary Theresa May visited the scene of the attack.
Speaking at a press conference after laying flowers and observing a period of silence, Mrs May said the atrocity was “a despicable act of cruelty”.
She said: “How could a place of such beauty, of relaxation and happiness, be turned into such a scene of brutality and destruction?”
She said she had heard “horror stories” of those caught up in the attack and accounts of “great bravery”, including Mathew James, who was hit in the hip, chest and pelvis as he shielded wife-to-be Saera Wilson from gunfire.
Mrs May said she had taken part in a “very constructive” meeting with politicians from Tunisia and other countries, adding: “We are very clear that the terrorists will not win. We will be united in working together to defeat them, but united also in working to defend our values.”
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Officials confirmed today that the total number of Britons killed when a gunman opened fire on sunbathers in the resort of Sousse is expected to reach “around 30”.
Four people needing treatment are being flown back to the UK on board an RAF C17 plane with “medevac” teams experienced at bringing injured service personnel back from operations overseas. The aircraft left the Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire at lunchtime.
The Prime Minister, who chaired a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergencies committee at 10 Downing Street, promised a “full spectrum response” to extremist terror.
He said the “existential threat” posed by the emergence of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria was “the struggle of our generation and we have to fight it with everything we can”.
The Prime Minister said the Government is working “as fast as we can” to get information to families still waiting in anguish for news of missing loved ones three days after the attack.
“I know it has taken time but these are very difficult things and we must get them right,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The PM’s spokeswoman said that delays in identifying the dead are due in part to the fact that the holidaymakers may not have been carrying identification at the time of the attack.
In two cases where authorities “feared the worst”, individuals thought to have possibly been victims of the gunman were this morning tracked down alive and well in the UK, she said.
Mr Cameron’s spokeswoman said that UK authorities were “working closely” with relatives of those killed to offer help with the repatriation of the bodies of their loved ones, and that some were expected to be brought home this week.
She said that the decision to bring some of the wounded back by RAF transport plane was based on their individual wishes and circumstances, rather than on the severity of their injuries.
Another two were returning by private medevac organised by tour operators and insurers. A number of those returning will need “ongoing medical treatment” and will be taken to “the appropriate places for them to get the care they require”.
Scotland Yard has said more than 600 officers are involved in what is its largest counter-terrorism operation since the 7/7 bombings.
Former navy chief Lord West said Britain must step up the “propaganda war” against Islamic State, also known as Isil or Isis, who he said were “running rings around us in terms of the social media they are putting out”.
He also suggested the UK should consider joining the US in air strikes on IS targets in Syria and the West should consider working with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
His comments come after former head of the Army Lord Dannatt called for allied special forces to be sent in on the ground to help destabilise Isil’s hold.
Mr Cameron defended the current military action, which includes air strikes against strongholds in Iraq, saying the Government’s strategy was to “build local armies in Iraq and Syria and local governments in Iraq and Syria.”
Scotland Yard has said more than 600 officers are involved in what is its largest counter-terrorism operation since the 7/7 bombings.
Asked about the Tunisia massacre, London mayor Boris Johnson said: “Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. We don’t at the moment think there is any read-across with security in London.
“Clearly it is also very poignant that this should happen just at the moment that we are preparing next week to memorialise 7/7 – the appalling tragedy in 2005 when 52 Londoners lost their lives.”