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TUNIS — New battle lines appeared to take shape in traumatized Tunisia on Sunday as the military backed the nascent interim government in what state media portrayed as a fight against security forces loyal to ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, blaming them for the violence and rioting that has engulfed the country since protests forced him from power 48 hours earlier. 

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Holly Pickett for The New York Times

A police officer carried a baseball bat in downtown Tunis on Sunday. 

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France Acted Slowly on Tunisian Crisis, Wary of Interfering (January 17, 2011) 

In Peril: The Arab Status Quo (January 16, 2011) 

Cables From American Diplomats Portray U.S. Ambivalence on Tunisia (January 16, 2011) 

In Tunisia, Clashes Continue as Power Shifts a Second Time (January 16, 2011) 

Times Topics: Tunisia | Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali

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Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Residents checked cars in Tunis to protect themselves from alleged supporters of the former president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali on Sunday. 

State television reported that the military had arrested Mr. Ben Ali’s former security chief, Ali Seriati, charging him with plotting against the government and inciting acts of violence. State television also said that a gunfight with Mr. Ben Ali’s security forces broke out near a former presidential palace here in the capital, and that the military had called in reinforcements as it battled other security forces in the southern part of the country. 

Mr. Ben Ali’s nephew, Kais Ben Ali, was among another group arrested on suspicion of “shooting at random” from police cars, Agence France-Presse reported. And there were reports that Mr. Ben Ali’s former interior minister, Rafiq Belhaj Kacem, had been arrested in his hometown for unspecified reasons. 

The state news reports underscored the military’s growing role in sustaining the interim civilian government, sometimes even against elements of the police force. It became clear on Sunday that the military had stepped forward to help calm the streets of the capital, displacing and controlling the gangs of newly deputized police officers who had sometimes terrorized residents the day before. 

As virtually the only pillar of government left intact, the military now could play a pivotal role in determining whether a new autocrat or the first Arab democracy emerges from the tumult that brought down Mr. Ben Ali — a question that has captivated the region. 

But determining who was in control or who was fighting whom here is also growing increasingly difficult. It was unclear how much responsibility Mr. Ben Ali’s loyalists bore for the chaos, or whether they were scapegoats. Many Tunisians, still seething at the flagrant corruption and brutal repression of Mr. Ben Ali’s rule, have been insisting without evidence for days that any riots and looting were the work of his police officers. 

Firefights around Bourguiba Boulevard and a tendency by the police to overreact illustrated the confusion. Around 3 p.m., a mob that included police officers swarmed over and arrested about a dozen Swedes after a search found weapons cases in their taxis; they were later determined to be a party of hunters in Tunisia to bag wild boar. Later, the police arrested four men carrying German passports, according to state television, on suspicion of firing shots at an opposition party headquarters, though no motive was provided. 

And then a pair of unidentified gunmen fired from rooftops, sending the police, soldiers and residents scurrying for shelter. After nearly three hours of heavy gunfire between the gunmen and the police, gunmen in a military helicopter swooped down and killed them, state television reported. But neither the police nor the official news reports explained whether the dead pair were Ben Ali loyalists, renegade police officers or something else. 

The protests have been fueled in large part by anger at the great fortunes amassed in recent years by members of the president’s family as everyday Tunisians suffered soaring unemployment, and the rage evidently burned on after the family was gone. 

Rioters ransacked several family mansions along with the Carthage headquarters of the president’s ruling party. They set scores of cars on fire apparently just because they were sold at dealerships owned by the president’s billionaire son-in-law. 

Fouad Mebazaa, the speaker of Parliament and new interim president, and Mohamed Ghannouchi, the prime minister — both close allies of Mr. Ben Ali from the ruling party — met Sunday with opposition party leaders about forming a unity government. Communists and Islamic parties, banned from political participation under current Tunisian law, were excluded from the talks. 

By late Sunday, Mr. Ghannouchi announced that he expected to present a new unity government on Monday. He is now expected to push the deadline for new elections back from 60 days to six months. And Tunisian analysts following the talks said Sunday night that the new government might ultimately allow the political participation of banned parties like the Islamists as well. 

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PARIS — Economic growth is an elixir for struggling economies, but in Europe it’s likely to come slowly to the countries that need it most. 

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Times Topic: Euro

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Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates last week denied talk that the country would seek outside help on its debt. 

The recovery that has flickered to life in the United States and much of Northern Europe is missing in euro zone nations straining under huge debt and harsh austerity measures — places like Greece, Ireland and Portugal that have imposed large spending cuts and tax increases. 

Those measures may eventually lead to healthier economies, but the process will take years, economists and analysts say. In the meantime, the drag on growth is increasing pressure on the euro, and tethering competitive countries like Germany, a major growth engine, to the faltering fortunes of the European Union’s weakest members. 

Countries using the euro will grow an average of 1.5 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, less than the 2.3 percent growth it predicted for the United States. While some of that difference reflects slower population growth in Europe, it points to the further relative decline of Europe’s weight in the global economy. 

That forecast was made before Congress passed a $858 billion package of tax cuts and incentives in December, which led some economists to raise their growth predictions for the American economy to as high as 4 percent. Europe has no similar stimulus to help stoke a stronger recovery. 

The longer-term picture is little better. By 2015, the I.M.F. said, growth in the euro area will come in at just 1.7 percent. 

To many analysts, the numbers add up to a long and painful journey back to prosperity. 

“This is the most brutal slimming exercise you can imagine, without the help of an exchange rate devaluation,” said Thomas Mayer, chief economist of Deutsche Bank. “It will take time and it will create tremendous economic hardship in these countries.” 

To be sure, there are some positive signs. None of Europe’s biggest economies are on the brink of recession: Germany expanded a healthy 3.6 percent last year, bolstering growth in the euro area. Portugal and Spain, where growth is weak, conducted better-than-expected debt auctions last week. 

But analysts were quick to point out that lenders demanded lofty interest rates for the bonds, reflecting worries that Portugal and Spain will eventually need a bailout and signaling skepticism among the markets that Europe can contain its crisis. 

European finance ministers will meet in Brussels Monday and Tuesday to discuss increasing Europe’s bailout fund and institutional reforms, but on a broader level the debate will be aimed at protecting the single currency. The growing economic divide in Europe means the euro’s survival in its current form can no longer be taken for granted if policy makers fail to come up with solutions to the Continent’s underlying problems. 

While mild growth is expected to return to the likes of Ireland and Portugal within a year, those forecasts have already been tempered. 

Exports are a big driver of the Irish economy, and are now the only bright spot after a contraction of its bloated construction sector. But sharp government spending cuts threaten to overshadow any export recovery this year. The I.M.F. now expects the economy to grow just 0.9 percent, down from a 2.3 percent forecast just a few months ago. 

Portugal’s problems are different. Unlike Ireland, its banks are not troubled. But the government has high debts, and what feeble growth it has will continue to weaken as the government curbs investments designed to stoke export growth, while wage cuts and tax increases hit the economy. 

Worse, Germany’s economy will start to be buffeted by its neighbors’ problems: its growth is expected to slow considerably as the government spends more to keep the euro together. With less cash, its troubled neighbors are also curbing their purchases of German and other imports. 

Most of Germany’s growth last year came in spring and summer. Since then, it has tapered off, and it is likely to cool to 2 percent this year before sliding to 1.3 percent in 2015, according to the I.M.F. 

As recently as 2005, Germany was considered “the sick man of Europe.” But it sharply lifted its competitiveness after spending nearly a decade fine-tuning its economy to turn it into a manufacturing powerhouse. It deregulated labor markets, adjusted its tax code, and kept a lid on wages — measures similar to those being adopted in places like Ireland. 

“It was a time that people don’t remember too fondly,” said Mr. Mayer of Deutsche Bank. “But competiveness came back. And that is the adjustment path that the others now have in front of them.” 

Still, not every country can reinvent itself as a manufacturing giant, and those on Europe’s southern rim face a challenge in breathing new life into their economies. Greece, for example, is trying to turn itself into a “green economy” focused on renewable energy development, a plan the government hopes will create more than 200,000 jobs by 2015. But politicians face a struggle finding the billions needed to turn its dreams into a reality.