In
September 2012, there are reports of the death of a Tunisian in a
battalion fighting alongside al-Furqan, an armed group in the
province of Idlib, fighting alongside al-Nosra1.
In March 2013, the Tunisian authorities estimate that 40% of foreign
fighters from the Syrian uprising are Tunisians2.
Two-thirds would fight in al-Nosra. Most Tunisian jihadists would be
from the town of Ben Gardane, south of Tunis. The city is located in
the province of Médenine on the border with Libya. Qatar would
supply money to Tunisian non-governmental organizations to recruit,
offering up to 3,000 dollars per person. The fighters are grouped and
trained in camps in the desert triangle between Libya, Tunisia and
Algeria, sent to Turkey and then inserted in Syria. Libyan jihadist
groups have established training camps in the province of Ghadames,
less than 70 km from the Tunisian border. Volunteers complete their
military training for 20 days3
in the province of Zawiyah and go to the port of Brega to Istanbul,
before finishing at the Syrian border. Some Tunisian fighters also
come from Lebanon, especially if they are going to or near Damascus ;
when it is Aleppo and other cities of the north, they pass through
Turkey.In
autumn 2013, the phenomenon seems better understood. It is not
limited to a poor class, effectively providing voluntary : graduates
from middle and upper classes also participate in jihad4.
While initially southern Tunisia, traditionally islamist, is
including the big battalions, today Tunisians of the center and the
north-Bizerte has become one of the bastions of the case. Ayman
Nabeli Tabalba leaves town in the central province of Monastir, to
fight in the ranks of ISIS. Born in 1986, the youngest of a family of
eight children, he is not particularly religious. It was after the
2011 revolution he became a Salafi. Tunisian Salafists have indeed
invested mosques after the victory of the Ennahda party in the
elections, and in particular that of al-Iman, near the house of
Ayman. Despite the efforts of his family, the Tunisian authorities
are relatively tolerant towards Salafists. Whole flights of Turkish
Airlines carry volunteers for jihad to Istanbul. In the suburbs of
Tunis, the state has disappeared with the fall of Ben Ali and Ennahda
intrudes including through controlled Salafist mosques. The Tunisian
Interior Minister stated that its services have already prevented
6,000 men to travel to Syria ... a Tunisian had shot a video for
Jaysh al-Muhajireen wa al-Ansar, the group of Omar Shishani now
rallied to ISIS in July 20135.
In May of the same year, the Tunisian Minister of Foreign Affairs had
yet recognized the presence of a maximum of 800 Tunisians in Syria, a
local radio talking about much larger numbers with no less than 132
Tunisians killed in February 2013 in the Aleppo region, mostly from
Sidi Bou Zid, where the revolution began in 20116.
But these figures appear to be largely overestimated, the radio is
also customary of dissemination of misinformation.
The
course of Aymen Saadi, who failed to blow his explosives near a
presidential mausoleum, that of Bourguiba, south of Tunis in October
2013, illustrates the variety of recruitment. City Zarghouan, east of
Tunis, however, is not a known bastion of Islam. Aymen has excellent
grades in school, especially in languages and history. End of 2012,
however, he became radicalized, showing an influence of Salafis, then
go to the Libyan training camps in March 2013. Nevertheless, he found
strapped with explosives in Tunisia, not in Syria. Abu Talha, from a
town near the Libyan border, fought near Aleppo. He spent six months
in an Islamist brigade in 2012. He then traveled to Syria alone
before making contact with the rebels on the Turkish border, which
shows perhaps the sophisticated and organized networks were formed at
the end of 2012-early 2013. A Syrian commander teaches recruits the
handling of the AK-47, RPG and guns, all interspersed with readings
from the Koran and other religious courses. Abu Talha had fought side
by side with al-Nosra7.
On 24 July 2013, ISIS announces the death of a Tunisian suicide
bomber, Hamza al 'Awni, aka Abu Hajer al Tunisi. Born in Sousse,
graduated as an engineer, Awni seeks to reach Chechnya in 2003. Came
in Syria in September 2012, he led his kamikaze attack 10 July 20138.
Al-Ansar Sharia Facebook page praised Tunisian soldiers who died
"martyrs" in Syria9.
Abu
Ayman is an example of voluntary recruited by Ansar al-Charia10.
Architect in Tunis, he decided to fight in Syria with two neighbors.
It flies to Amman in Jordan, where he must succeed in crossing the
border, patrolled by Jordanian intelligence. Once the insertion done,
Abu Ayman and his companions are separated. Himself finally landed in
the fighting on the outskirts of Damascus. He joined a unit, Ansar
al-Sharia, which has 300 fighters, including many foreigners
(Chechens, Kosovars, and Tunisians). In August 2013, Aaron Zelin had
interviewed a Tunisian fighter who has returned from Syria, in the
province of Nabeul, east of Tunis. Coming from a modest background,
this fighter is back with money that enabled him to help his family
live better. His boss, a Salafist who has ties with Saudi Arabia, had
financed part of his trip to Turkey. He probably fought with al-Nosra
: he had become more "religious" in 2011, after the
Tunisian revolution, following first Ennahda and then the Salafists.
The mosque was dependent Ansar al-Sharia, an Egyptian imam came from
Saudi Arabia. It seems that Ansar al-Sharia directs his fighters to
al-Nosra : three other men were left with this voluntary, one was
killed. On his return, he was arrested on his descent of the aircraft
and detained for three and a half months before being freed11.
With
regard to training camps in Libya which pass Tunisian volunteers and
others, they would be the product of Ansar al-Sharia movement in
Libya, a former rebel brigade that fought Gaddafi in 2011, before
conducting the bombing that killed U.S. Ambassador consulate in
Benghazi in September 201212.
Saif Allah bin Hussein, aka Abu Iyad al-Tunisi, released in 2011, was
part of the old network of Maarufi Tareq, who had links with al-Qaeda
: he created Ansar al-Sharia in late April 201113.
This is the organization that organizes and transit passage through
mobile camps of volunteers throughout eastern Libya, near the
Tunisian border. According to official reports, dozens of Algerians
and Tunisians arrive each week to be trained in these camps before
leaving by plane with false passports Libyans in Benghazi, Ansar
al-Sharia enjoying accomplices at the airport. Ayman Saadi, arrested
October 30, 2013 near the mausoleum of Bourguiba, probably passed
through these camps in Benghazi and Derna but the Libyans then
returned him to Tunisia, not in Syria. It is not known if Saadi had
links with Ansar al-Sharia in Libya. We know however that both
Tunisia and Libya movements are related : the first receives weapons
from the second.
 | |
| Abou Iyad al-Tunisi.-Source : http://www.dailystar.com.lb/dailystar/Pictures/2013/12/30/237423_mainimg.jpg |
 |
| Kamem Zarrouk.-Source : http://www.mosaiquefm.net/assets/content/thumb/large_news_KAMEL-ZAROUK-1.jpg |
In
February 2014, the Interior Minister said that 400 Tunisian jihadists
have returned from Syrian battlefield14.
The statement comes after the National Guard and the agency against
terrorism have been defeated in capturing Zarruq Kamel, number 2 of
Ansar al-Sharia, inside a mosque in a suburb Tunis. Zarrouk would
then joined ISIS. Syria. Former nightclub bouncer in Tunis, he began
recruiting for the Syrian jihad in 201115.
According to the recent study of the Meir Amit center dedicated to
volunteers from Arab countries to the Syrian jihad, Tunisians are a
very important contingent, unlike jihads in Iraq or Afghanistan :
there are more than a thousand Tunisians fighting in Syria. The
geographical origin is confirmed: Sidi Bouzid, Ben Gardane, near the
Libyan border, Zarat in the district of Gades, east of the country,
stand particularly as reported starting places of volunteers. Social
background is varied although most come from modest backgrounds;
volunteers are recruited in mosques run by Salafis, others are
influenced by the videos and other materials posted on the Internet
about jihad16.
In April 2014, Abu Iyad al-Tunisi, the leader of Ansar al-Sharia,
called in an audio document from Tunisians do jihad in Syria, within
the ranks of the ISIS. Recently, the group, declared a terrorist
organization by the Tunisian government in the summer of 2013, might
be trying to be renamed Shabab al-Tawhid. This mark may be a
combination of more closely links with the Libyan movement of the
same name, Ansar al-Sharia17.
The Ennahda party in power in Tunisia, and associated with the Muslim
Brotherhood, first not said a lot about volunteers, probably because
of its hostility to the Syrian regime. But the media give wide
publicity to the phenomenon and many Tunisians, especially the laity,
begin to worry and fear of attacks by veterans of Syrian battlefield.
In June 2013, the British media reported that twenty families have
left Syria to collect their children, some were even imprisoned. End
of March 2013, the Tunisian government arrested for the first time a
Salafist who boasted of having spent eight months in Syria. But the
country has 6,000 mosques ... A year later, in February 2014, the
Minister of the Interior recognizes the impossibility of holding the
fighters returning from Syria because of flaws in the law18.
Ansar
al-Sharia in Tunisia was a leader in the use of social networks. It
is used to dismiss the charge of terrorism, and to show its supports,
such as ISIS in Syria. The group also used them to disseminate
anti-government propaganda, like Abu Qatada about al-Filistini, based
in England, and near which Abu Iyad al-Tunisi lived when he was in
exile. The group also plays on possible backlash by security forces
against the population, a conventional technique of the jihadists to
drain support. Ansar al-Sharia also emphasizes the centrality of
sharia as the basis of the law and the state19.
1Mohamed
Ben Ahmed, « African Militants Killed in Syria Fighting
Alongside al-Qaeda », Al-Monitor, 10 septembre 2012.
2Nesrine
Hamedi, « Tunisian Jihadists Fighting in Syria »,
Al-Monitor, 24 mars 2013.
3Aaron
Y. Zelin, « New Evidence on Ansar al-Sharia in Libya Training
Camps », The Washington Institute, 8 août 2013.
4Hazem
al-Amin, « Tunisia’s 'Road to Jihad' in Syria Paved by
Muslim Brotherhood », Al-Monitor, 23 octobre 2013.
11Aaron
Y. Zelin, « Meeting a Returned Tunisian Foreign Fighter from
the Syrian Front », The Washington Institute, 8
novembre 2013.
12Ludovico
Carlino, « Ansar al-Shari’a: Transforming Libya into a Land
of Jihad », Terrorism Monitor Volume: 12 Issue: 1, The
Jamestown Foundation, 9 janvier 2013.
13The
Phenomenon of Foreign Fighters from the Arab World in the Syrian
Civil War, Most of Them Fighting in the Ranks of Organizations
Affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Global Jihad, The Meir Amit
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, mai 2014.
16The
Phenomenon of Foreign Fighters from the Arab World in the Syrian
Civil War, Most of Them Fighting in the Ranks of Organizations
Affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Global Jihad, The Meir Amit
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, mai 2014.
18The
Phenomenon of Foreign Fighters from the Arab World in the Syrian
Civil War, Most of Them Fighting in the Ranks of Organizations
Affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Global Jihad, The Meir Amit
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, mai 2014.