Abu Iyad Al-Tunisi, then-leader of Tunisian Salafists is pictured during a meeting on May 20, 2012, in Kairouan, Tunisia. (Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]
Late December 2013, the Tunisian government’s news agency reported that the country’s most wanted terrorist had been arrested. Citing an anonymous “security source,” the Tunis Afrique Presse claimed that Saifullah Ben Hussein, better known as Abu Iyad Al-Tunisi, the leader of the Islamist group Ansar Al-Shari’a, had been arrested in Misrata, in western Libya, by US special forces acting with the assistance of Libyan forces.
But the alleged arrest was followed by a series of denials. The news of the seizure of Abu Iyad was denounced as “media lies” on the Facebook page of Ansar Al-Shari’a. The Pentagon officially denied any US involvement. In a carefully worded statement, a spokesman said: “US forces were not involved in any operations involving Ansar Al-Shari’a leader Abu Iyad today in Libya.”
The disclaimer came only two days after four US soldiers were detained at a checkpoint at Sabratha in western Libya. The State Department claimed they were reviewing evacuation routes for staff from the embassy in Tripoli, some 40 miles (65 kilometers) away.
In October, US Special Forces seized Abu Anas Al-Libi, a senior Al-Qaeda commander, in Tripoli, before spiriting him onto a warship bound for New York to face the full force of US justice.
The Tunisian government has been on Abu Iyad’s trail since the summer. The Salafist leader was accused of masterminding an attack on the US embassy in Tunis in 2012. He was also said to be behind the controversial killings of opposition politicians Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi earlier this year.
The hunt for Abu Iyad has taken place against the backdrop of rising political violence in Tunisia. The ruling Ennahda party has struggled to allay the fears of secular-minded Tunisians about the growing Islamization of Tunisian society. With an escalation in jihadist violence during 2012 and 2013, Ennahda has tried to silence claims of involvement with extremist groups, positioning itself as the moderate voice of political Islam. By attacking Ansar Al-Shari’a, the leading Salafist group in Tunisian politics, Ennahda has swept aside accusations of being soft on Islamist violence. Ansar Al-Shari’a was banned by the Tunisian government in August 2013 amid stories of an “armed wing” operating in the shadows and allegations of a covert pact with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Abu Iyad’s personal history gave credibility to the narrative. Ironically, Abu Iyad was once a militant in the Islamic Tendency Movement, which later became the Ennahda party. He fled to Afghanistan in the 1990s following a crackdown on political Islam in Tunisia, meeting Osama bin Laden and helping to found the Tunisian Combatant Group, a short-lived group affiliated to Al-Qaeda. Abu Iyad was jailed in Tunisia in 2003. He would later be released in the general amnesty following the 2011 uprising.
Yet Ansar Al-Shari’a at first appeared to be a very different kind of organization, a new-look Salafist group for the post-Arab Spring world. From the group’s creation in April 2011, Abu Iyad had always claimed that Ansar Al-Shari’a was a non-violent organization. He repeatedly claimed that Tunisia was a “land of da’wa [proselytization], not a land of jihad.” Ansar Al-Shari’a instituted a program of social welfare and preaching, calling for the realignment of Tunisian laws with Islamic principles. Abu Iyad’s ideology appeared to have much in common with contemporary Salafist ideas that critique much jihadi violence as reckless and unfocused. Instead, Ansar Al-Shari’a was supposed to pursue a program of reform through non-violent social and political means.
But in the nightmarish vision publicized by the Tunisian government, Ansar Al-Shari’a became the scapegoat for much of the post-revolutionary violence of Tunisia. Blame for unexplained killings and attacks was laid at the feet of the Salafist group with increasing frequency. For the Tunisian government, Ansar Al-Shari’a became part of a joined-up conspiracy theory that links the group with its homonym in Libya, which was responsible for the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, and with AQIM.
Clearly something is afoot in the Tunisian body politic, although Ansar Al-Sharia’s role remains unclear. In October, a suicide bomber died after an explosion on a tourist beach in Sousse in southern Tunisia; he was the only casualty. Another bomber was apprehended as he attempted an attack on the mausoleum of Habib Bourguiba, the secular founder of modern Tunisia, in Monastir. There have been reports of gunfights and killings of police officers in Tunisian streets.
Whatever the truth behind the competing claims over the capture of Abu Iyad, the media fallout shows once again the delicate regional balancing act, with the Tunisian security services seeking to claim another victory in the battle against extremism and the US treading carefully in war-torn Libya.
