Salafist youth clash with police in Sousse, March, 2013.Demotix/Reporter #31359. All rights reserved.Over the last few months, international news has resounded with horror stories, each more terrible than the last: the killing of tourists at the Bardo National Museum, the assassination of cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, the tragic hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket in Paris, the massacres of Nigerians by the bloodthirsty groups of Boko Haram, the atrocities committed by Daech in Syria and in Iraq…
The enormous number of murders, decapitations, rapes and other horrors that are committed in the name of Jihad* furnish proof that violent extremism and the radicalization of young people is a plague threatening the stability of the nations in our modern world.
Tunisia took its first democratic steps in a shaky national and international security context. Since the start of the conflict in Syria, it is estimated that more than 3000 young Tunisians have joined the ranks of the terrorist organization ‘Daech’. Many others (the exact number is not known) have joined the radical movement of Ansar Chariaa, a group that was declared a terrorist organization by the head of the Tunisian government in August 2013. Since the attack on the Bardo National Museum, links have been established between this organization and Katibat Okba Ibn Nafaa, (the phalanx of AQMI in Algeria and Tunisia). But very little information has been released about the actual number of young Tunisians who have joined these.
