TUNISIAN authorities yesterday counted votes in the first free election in the nation’s history, with early signs that a once-banned Islamist party is leading in the country that unleashed the Arab Spring.

Gangs of armed men attacked at least four jails across Egypt before dawn today, helping to free hundreds of Muslim militants and thousands of other inmates as police vanished from the streets of Cairo and other cities.

TUNISIA’S interim leadership promised a “complete break with the past” and freed political prisoners yesterday in efforts to appease street protesters who want a total purge of the old guard from a unity government.

Hundreds of protesters marched through Tunisia’s capital today demanding that allies of the exiled president stop clinging to power.