[MAGHAREBIA] Tunisia is aggressively prosecuting jihadists returning from the Levant, soliciting help from citizens to get the job done.The interior ministry is currently looking for several dangerous turbans.
Tunisian national Hichem Ben Mohammed Ben Abderrazzek Berrebeh, and Algerian citizens Khaled Hamadi Chaied (aka Lokman Abou Sakhr) and Mohammed Amine Mahkouka (aka Abou Aymen Ouahrani) are being sought on terrorism-related charges, the interior ministry said Sunday (July 13th).
Public prosecutors issued another six arrest warrants for jihadists on Friday. The accused are part of a group of a group of some 20 jihadists who fought with ISIS in Syria.
The interior ministry has called on citizens "to report all available information" about terrorists, including any suspicious activity.
| *ring, ring* "Mahmoud the Weasel here. I unnerstand yer desirous of information. Well, I got information, lotsa information. But it's gonna cost ya, see?" |
"Silence is considered complicity with terrorist elements and support for them. Those who are not sharing information are subject to prosecution. Information shared is highly confidential and protected according to law," the statement continued.
Tunisian judicial authorities have already begun prosecuting fighters returning from Syria, both as individuals and as groups.
One young salafist...also known as Wahhabis, salafists are against innovation in religion or in anything else. They eat the same things every meal of every day and all their children are named Abdullah or Mohammed. Not all salafists are takfiris, but all takfiris are salafists. They are fond of praying five times a day and killing infidels...
appeared Friday before a Tunis court to stand trial for joining a terrorist organization. He was also charged with receiving combat training outside Tunisia.
The accused said during his interrogation that he had travelled to Libya, where he became familiar with military drills, before departing for Syria.
The defendant noted that his decision to travel to Syria was at the behest of Ansar al-Sharia
...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet...
member Bilel Chaouachi.
Chaouachi was summoned last week by the judicial authorities for questioning regarding his call to pledge allegiance to His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us...
, head of the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
"The authorities' decision to pursue returnees from Syria, although it came too late, is an important step and a lesson to those who are planning or thinking to bypass laws expressly prohibiting joining gangs," security expert Faisal Oueslati told Magharebia.
Other observers said Tunisia must do more than prosecute the returnees. Tareq Moumni, a sociologist who monitors returnees after their release from prison, asked for psychological and social guidance for repatriated fighters.
"They were brainwashed and absorbed hard boy ideas in addition to receiving training on various types of arms," he noted. Without follow-up, they could pose a threat after their release, Moumni warned.