Tunisian forces have killed nine men belonging to the country's main jihadist group, which was accused of organizing the attack on its national museum, the interior ministry said Sunday.

"Nine terrorists were killed last night (Saturday) in the mountainous area of Sidi Aich" in west-central Tunisia, ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told AFP.

Tunisia's national museum which was the scene of last week's massacre of foreign tourists is to reopen to the public briefly on Monday, the culture ministry announced.

The ministry said on its Facebook page that the Bardo museum in Tunis would receive visits by school groups on Friday and then open to the general public for the day on Monday.

Tunisia said Thursday that it had arrested 23 suspects in connection with last week's jihadist massacre at the country's national museum.

"Twenty-three suspects including a woman have been arrested as part of a terrorist cell" involved in the attack, Interior Minister Najem Gharsalli told journalists, adding that "80 percent of this cell" had been broken up.

Morocco, on guard against attacks like the Tunis museum massacre, prides itself on being a bastion against Islamist extremism with its anti-jihadist "FBI" and training of imams to preach tolerance.

More than 130 "terrorist cells" have been dismantled, 2,720 suspects arrested and 276 plots foiled since 2002, according to Abdelhak Khiame, director of the newly established Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations.

French President Francois Hollande will travel to Tunis on Sunday to take part in a "march against terrorism" in the wake of jihadist attacks that killed 21 people, his office said.

"At the invitation of President Beji Caid Essebsi, the president of the republic will go to Tunis for the 'grand republican march against terrorism' organized by the Tunisian authorities," Hollande's Elysee Palace office said in a statement.

Tunisia's national museum was forced to delay its planned reopening on Tuesday, officials said, as security was boosted around the site of last week's jihadist massacre that killed 21 people.

Hundreds gathered outside the National Bardo Museum in central Tunis, many carrying placards encouraging foreigners to visit Tunisia which relies heavily on tourism income.

Tunisia's National Bardo Museum is set to reopen to the public Tuesday after a jihadist attack that killed 20 foreigners, as the country looks to restore faith in its tourism sector.

Museum officials said the reopening, which will be marked with a ceremony, was "a message" to the gunmen who killed the tourists and a police officer there last Wednesday.

Tunisia's prime minister fired police chiefs in the capital Monday as the country looks to restore faith in its tourism industry after last week's jihadist attack that killed 20 foreigners.

Prime Minister Habib Essid sacked the heads of police for Tunis and the area around the National Bardo Museum, site of the assault claimed by the Islamic State group, after finding "several deficiencies" in security.

A Tunisian soldier was killed and two others injured Sunday when their vehicle hit a landmine "planted by terrorist elements" in a mountainous western region near the Algerian border, the defense ministry said.

"A mine exploded under their vehicle," ministry spokesman Belhassen Oueslati told Agence France Presse, declining to name the exact location where he said a military operation was "ongoing".

By launching attacks in Yemen and Tunisia, the Islamic State group aims to demonstrate its ability to expand in order to divert attention from setbacks in Syria and Iraq, experts say.

"Expansion is their strategy," and the first IS attacks in Yemen and Tunisia allow it to appear omnipresent, said J.M. Berger, analyst and co-author of "ISIS: the State of Terror".