After the 2011 Tunisian Revolution, Seifallah Ben Hassine—who in 2000 founded the Tunisian Combat Group (TCG), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization linked with al-Qaeda—was released from prison and formed Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST). By 2012, Tunisian authorities had identified two other al-Qaeda-linked groups that were carrying out violent attacks in the country’s northwest: Katiba Uqba ibn Nafi (KUIN) and the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade. The relationship between these groups is unclear. According to a report published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, it is possible that the KUIN and AST are, in fact, different branches of a single entity, with KUIN responsible for military activities and AST responsible for public outreach and proselytizing. Other reports have indicated that the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade served as the military wing of AST after the groups merged on January 14, 2014. It is unclear whether or to what extent KUIN is distinct from the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade. (Sources: DNI, UN Security Council, U.S. Department of State, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Reuters, AARMS, Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium, Federation of American Scientists)
Many Tunisians, who were formerly aligned with al-Qaeda, have shifted their allegiance to ISIS. In December 2014, a KUIN and/or Okba ibn Nafaa Brigade splinter group called Jund al-Khilafah-Tunisia (JAK-T) announced its allegiance to ISIS. After al-Qaeda formally disassociated from ISIS in February 2014, now-deceased AST deputy leader Kamel Zarrouk reportedly traveled to Syria to join ISIS. The Long War Journal reported that, “Zarrouk [was] known in his [Tunisian] neighborhood as someone who encouraged young people to go for jihad in Syria, which he consider[ed] to be the springboard for establishing an Islamic state from the Gulf to the ocean.” In July 2014, a number of other AST leaders including spokesman Seifeddine Rais followed suit and declared loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Sources: Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Long War Journal, AllAfrica, Al-Monitor)
Recruitment
According to Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid, Tunisians are primarily drawn to jihadist groups for ideological and economic reasons. He went on to explain: “They didn’t have jobs... They couldn’t have a normal life….and there’s a lot of lobbying out of this extremism that are looking after those people, and offering them money and activity.” The Salafi jihadist group Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) claims to have recruited as many as 70,000 Tunisians since its formation in February 2011, according to a January 2014 Economist report. AST has successfully attracted new members through dawa (Islamic missionary work). As one student supporter of AST said: “They welcome people, they perform charitable works that the state doesn’t do: caravans bringing food aid, assistance, clothes, in every corner of the country in the poor neighborhoods.” (Sources: Council on Foreign Relations, Economist, International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Al-Monitor)
Following the 2011 Tunisian Revolution, increased civil liberties enabled extremist groups to preach and recruit freely. AST held its first “annual” conference in April 2011 to spread its message and to discuss the future of the group. Little is known about the first conference aside from the fact that it was attended by a few hundred Islamists. The second conference was held in the western city of Kairouan and was reportedly attended by more than 10,000 Islamists. During that conference, AST leaders reportedly called on attendees to boycott the media, which they accused of slandering the Salafist movement. In addition, AST leader Seifallah Ben Hassine advocated for the creation of an Islamic workers collective to challenge the secular Tunisian General Labor Union. The third conference, scheduled to take place in May 2013 and estimated to attract more than 40,000 attendees, was blocked by Tunisian security forces in a massive show of force. The ensuing clashes drew 40,000 rioters, and security forces shot and killed one bystander in Tunis. AST has not publicly held an annual conference since. (Sources: New York Times, Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Eurasia Review, Al-Monitor)
Many Salafist groups in Tunisia, including AST, have expanded their membership by recruiting at mosques. In 2013, Salafists reportedly “controlled” between 100 and 500 of the country’s 5,000 mosques. Salafists have also proselytized students through “preaching tents” set up outside of school grounds. A Reuters investigation into the Bardo Museum attack revealed that the two perpetrators had been radicalized in Salafist mosques and that the younger of the two, 21-year-old Jabeur Khachnaoui, was initially exposed to radical content via a preaching tent outside his school. Although it is unclear in the report, it seems that in the wake of the Bardo attack authorities closed the Salafist tent near the school and that the imam at the local mosque was “pressured into changing his rhetoric.” (Sources: Combatting Terrorism Center, U.S. Bureau of International Labor Affairs, Business Insider)
ISIS reportedly openly recruits at mosques in Kasserine, which is located near the Algerian border. According to a CNN report, “post-revolution chaos, bitter poverty and unemployment have made Kasserine a fertile recruiting ground.” ISIS has also successfully attracted new recruits online. Tunisians have been featured heavily in ISIS propaganda, and ISIS has regularly eulogized Tunisian fighters and suicide bombers. In early 2016, news agencies began reporting on a major push by ISIS to recruit Tunisian women for suicide bombings. (Sources: CNN, Al Jazeera, Guardian)
Foreign Fighters
According to Aaron Zelin at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, after the Tunisian government designated AST as a terrorist organization in August 2013, “a majority of the Tunisians that remained involved in jihadism joined up with ISIS in Syria and later in Libya.” Even prior to that designation, the flow of Tunisians out of the country was so great that AST’s Seifallah Ben Hassine lamented that the wars in Syria and Mali have “emptied Tunisia of its young.” By July 2015, approximately 5,500 Tunisians had reportedly traveled to Syria to fight, primarily with ISIS, against Bashar al-Assad’s government. That same month, Tunisian Interior Minister Lofti Ben Jeddou reported that Tunisian security forces had prevented an additional 8,000 Tunisians from traveling to Syria to fight. As of late 2015, an estimated 6,000 Tunisians had reportedly joined jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria. (Sources: Middle East Institute, Middle East Online, Business Standard, USA Today, New York Times)
Tunisian militants—including the perpetrators of the 2015 Bardo Museum attack and 2015 Sousse attacks—have traveled to Libya to receive training at ISIS camps and many have subsequently gone on to fight in Syria. A study conducted by the Tunisian Center for Research and Studies on Terrorism found that 69 percent of Tunisia’s jihadists had traveled to Libya for military training. Ben Gardane, which is located in south eastern Tunisia near the Libyan border, is known to have exported the largest number of Tunisia’s foreign fighters, despite the town’s population being less than 80,000 people. Within Ben Gardane, there are believed to be dozens of ISIS sleeper cells, and an illegal market of weapons and ammunition is known to have historically flowed through the city to neighboring Libya. (Sources: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Soufan Group, Daily Maverick, Vice)
In a March 2015 ISIS video, a Tunisian jihadist named Abu Yahya al-Tounessi urged Tunisians to join ISIS in Libya and threatened the Tunisian government: “We are coming to conquer back Tunisia. I swear you will not be at ease now with the Islamic State a few kilometers from you just across the border.” Similarly, in April 2015, an ISIS-affiliated group called the “Tripoli Province” released a video in which a masked gunman promised to carry out attacks to avenge Islamists imprisoned in Tunisia, stating: “The Islamic State is only a few kilometers from you [Tunisia], we are coming.” The video also called on Tunisians to come to Libya to fight with ISIS: “Brothers, come to Libya. Don’t be humiliated by the [Tunisian] dictators. Muslims have their own state now.” The Tunisian government has indicated that there are as many as 1,500 Tunisian fighters in Libya, an estimated 300 of which are women. As noted by Zelin, it is likely that the number of Tunisian jihadists in Libya will continue to rise “amid the 2017 collapse of the Islamic State centers in Iraq and Syria.” (Sources: Reuters, Vocativ, Wilson Center, Washington Institute, Washington Institute)
Tunisian nationals have also planned and executed a number of significant attacks in Europe. A Tunis-born truck driver named Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel carried out the truck-ramming attack in Nice, France that killed 86 people and injured more than 400 others on Bastille Day 2016. On February 1, 2017, German police arrested an asylum seeker from Tunisia suspected of plotting an ISIS attack in Germany and who was also wanted in connection to a 2015 attack in Tunisia that killed 20 people. In December 2016, another Tunisian man, Anis Amri, plowed a truck into a German Christmas market, killing 12 people. Asharq Al-Awsat reported in August 2018 that Tunisian authorities had arrested four Tunisians involved in “an international network that smuggles terrorists from Iraq and Turkey towards Europe using forged foreign passports.” That month, Tunisian authorities reportedly arrested nine Europe-bound terror suspects as they were attempting to leave the country on boat. (Sources: Washington Post, Washington Post, News Corp Australia Network, Asharq Al-awsat, Independent)
Tunisian authorities have sought to better investigate terror cells that allegedly direct Tunisan nationals to carry out attacks abroad. Following the deadly October 2020 attack in Nice, France, on October 30, the counterterrorism division of Tunisia’s public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the group Al Mahdi in Southern Tunisia. The investigation was prompted after a video on social media, that allegedly featured Tunisian national Ibrahim Issaoui, claimed that Al Mahdi was responsible for the attack. However, a spokesperson for the Tunis court has claimed as of yet, there is no evidence of the group’s existence in Tunisia. (Sources: Reuters, South China Morning Post, RT)