The Middle-Class Killers of Tunisia
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TUNISIA The Islamists who attacked the national museum were far from poor or marginalised The middle-class killers of Tunisia BY PATRICK MARKEY AND TAREK AMARA SPECIAL REPORT 1 TUNISIA MIDDLE CLASS KILLERS SBIBA, TUNISIA, MAY 17, 2015 ne of the young men was a high school literature student who Ohelped his father tend the family olive trees in their isolated farming com- munity near the Algerian border. The other lived in the capital Tunis, had a taste for fashion and worked as a travel agent. Jabeur Khachnaoui and Yassine el-Abidi came from stable, middle-class families and were well educated. On March 18, they came together to attack Tunisia’s Bardo Museum, shoot- ing foreign tourists as they filed off buses outside the museum, and then taking more tourists hostage inside. SHATTERED: A tourist bus after the attack on the national museum in Tunis. The March attack was Over three hours they killed 22 people one of the worst in a country that has largely escaped the region’s turmoil. Cover: One of the attackers, in all, including French, Italian, Japanese, Yassine al-Abidi, in a family photograph held by his cousin. REUTERS/ZOUBEIR SOUISSI (2) Russian and Spanish visitors. Security forc- es eventually stormed the building and shot and killed the hostage-takers. Was it extremist recruiters? men go abroad for training or to fight, and To their families, the two young men Was it the mosque? All I know is I return like ticking bombs. “The ones that seemed to lead normal lives. But accord- brought him up right. come back, they can explode at any time.” ing to Tunisia’s interior ministry, they both Khachnaoui’s father Ezzdine said he still spent time in militant camps in Libya late Ezzdine Khachnaoui cannot fathom why his son embraced such last year before returning to Tunisia, their Father of one of the attackers a violent ideology. ideologies fine-tuned and basic military “I lost my son, but my son took their lives, training completed. political balance that have helped keep the and I don’t know why,” he said at the family’s Their stories show how difficult it will country stable. farmhouse in rural Kasserine province. “Was be for Tunisia to stop others making simi- At the same time, Tunisia supplies the it extremist recruiters? Was it the mosque? lar journeys. The country and region are full largest contingent of foreign fighters to All I know is I brought him up right.” of young men like Khachnaoui and Abidi, extremist group Islamic State, according Half a dozen other Tunisian families and Islamist groups are increasingly target- to the Tunisian government. Tunisians told Reuters similar stories. They all have ing middle-class recruits. also take a leading role in jihadist ranks in had family members, including students, The Bardo massacre has also reopened neighbouring Libya, carrying out behead- recent graduates and professionals, leave debate on the country’s delicate balance ings and running training camps. In all, to fight abroad. Most of the families are between the need for security, and the rare more than 3,000 Tunisians now fight for middle class. freedoms enjoyed by both secular Tunisians militant groups in Iraq, Syria and Libya, One family in the city of Sousse, a popu- and conservative Islamists. according to Tunisian officials. lar tourist resort, say they lost their son, a Tunisia is one of the Arab world’s most A senior Tunisian security source said professional football player, to an Islamist secular nations and has won praise for its the two young attackers were the product group fighting in Syria. Another fam- democratic progress since the 2011 Arab of profound political shifts in Tunisia since ily – husband, wife, four children and two Spring uprising, which began there. It the Arab Spring allowed long-oppressed relatives – left the island resort of Djerba has mostly escaped the violence and up- ultra-conservative Islamists to come into to travel through Turkey and live under heaval afflicting Libya and Egypt. And it the open. “It was like a pressure cooker that Islamic State in Syria, local officials in has a new constitution, free elections and a was closed and burst open,” he said. Young Djerba say. SPECIAL REPORT 2 TUNISIA MIDDLE CLASS KILLERS A recruitment drive Tunisian militants have fought in foreign wars for decades, from Afghanistan to Somalia to Iraq. But after the 2011 revolt against President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, hundreds of hard-liners were released from prisons, strengthening militant ranks with experienced old hands. Critics accused the Islamist-led government that followed Ali of allowing extremists too much freedom. Since then, a caretaker government and a coalition government elected at the end of 2014 have taken a tougher line, going to court to take back mosques, sweeping up hundreds of GRIEF: Yassine al-Abidi’s mother cries during her son’s funeral on March 22. REUTERS/ZOUBEIR SOUISSI suspected militants, and curbing militant websites that recruit for Iraq and Syria. Journalist Hedi Yahmed, whose book, In Ouslatia, near the historic mosque I told his family, you are “Beneath the Black flag: Tunisia’s Salafists,” features interviews with Tunisian militants town of Kairouen, more than 20 young victims of terrorism too. men have left, residents say. One fam- fighting in Iraq, Somalia and Syria, said the ily there lost two brothers: One was killed Mohammed jihadi phenomenon was driven in part by the fighting in Libya, the other became a com- Uncle of Yassine el-Abidi end of 20 years of religious repression. mander in Islamic State in Syria, according “This generation has to deal with this to messages on social media. He was killed across the nearby border with Algeria, image of Tunisia that is liberal, secular, that in March. Tunisia’s wealthy oil-producing neighbour. gives freedoms to women. Now a young Many young Tunisians praise the coun- Isolated and with few opportunities for Tunisian in Iraq and Syria desperately wants try’s democratic progress since the 2011 its young, Sbiba seems just the place to to show there is another side to Tunisia, one revolution, but also say a series of gov- breed discontent. It was in a similar town even more attached to that form of extreme ernments has failed to deliver promised some 80 km (50 miles) to the south in late Islam,” he said. economic opportunities. In recent weeks 2010 that an impoverished street vendor set Nouredine Mbarki, a Tunisian specialist hundreds of unemployed youth, including himself alight in protest after police con- in extremist groups, said Islamic State university graduates, have begun hunger fiscated his wares, triggering protests that recruiters wanted more middle-class youth, strikes and taken to the streets in southern spread and erupted into the Arab Spring. to take advantage of their education. “They towns to demand jobs. The growing sense Khachnaoui, 21, was not uneducated, are more flexible, and can help apply the of disappointment in the country, say ex- unemployed or poor. His family is rela- group’s communication strategy.” perts on Islamic militancy, is fertile ground tively well off, with a large house and land. That has Tunis worried. for extremist recruiters. Khachnaoui’s uncles are teachers; his sister In an Islamic State video posted online studied literature at university. in March, a masked Tunisian jihadist by the SCHOOL YARD RECRUITERS Khachnaoui’s relatives all say nothing name of Abu Yahya al-Tounessi called on Jabeur Khachnaoui’s family home sits on a obvious changed in the young man who Tunisian brothers to join him in Libya to plain of olive trees and fruit plantations near was raised to be moderate in his religious prepare for a bigger campaign. the town of Sbiba. The community of 6,000 beliefs. He travelled 18 km to his school by “We are coming to conquer back Tunisia,” people has long been known for its prized bus every day. He helped on the farm and he said in the video, Kalashnikov strapped to apples. The region’s roads also sport signs of spent his free time collecting apples. his back. “I swear you will not be at ease now another source of income: stalls that hawk Only his mild upset over images of Iraq with the Islamic State a few kilometers from contraband gasoline and fuel, smuggled and Syria or of immodestly clad women you just across the border.” SPECIAL REPORT 3 TUNISIA MIDDLE CLASS KILLERS in television commercials offered a clue to Tunis his shifting ideas, his father, Ezzdine, said. Massacre in Tunis Jabeur would turn off the television or leave On March 18, Islamic militants attacked the Bardo National TUNISIA the room. Museum in the Tunisian capital, killing 22 people, including But if his life at home appeared normal, 21 foreigners, and injuring more than 50. ALG. LIBYA things had changed at school in recent years, officials and fellow students say. The local mosque was already under d’ El Menzah Tunis-Carthage the control of a hard-line imam, Sbiba’s Olympic Stadium International Airport mayor Abd Elatif Kechini said. By early University of 2013, Salafists had set up a tent on waste- Tunis El Manar land outside the Sbiba school and began to proselytise. It was a time of flux in Tunisia. Before the revolution that ousted President Zine Bardo TUNIS el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, Tunisia’s re- National Museum ligious conservatives mostly kept out of Lake of Tunis politics. Islamist groups were banned and Islamists regularly arrested. Parliament But in the vaccuum that followed, fierce argument erupted over the role of Islam in politics.