After uprising at home, more Tunisians join Syria's civil war

Study of anti-Assad foreign fighters killed in past year finds higher ratio of Tunisians than seen in Iraq several years ago.

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The nationalities of Sunni men going to fight in the Syrian civil war reflect a changing Middle East in which more fighters seem to come from post-uprising Arab countries, according to a new study.
The study by the US-based Flashpoint consultancy looked at the backgrounds of 280 foreigners killed while fighting in Syria against the government of Bashar Al Assad from July last year until May this year.
The most striking finding of the study, which used mainly social media and militant jihadi forums, was that the percentage of Tunisians killed in fighting had increased dramatically compared with two similar studies of foreign fighters in Iraq between 2003 and 2007.
A high percentage of the fighters killed in Syria were Saudi Arabian and Libyan, as was the case in the Iraq studies - one published in 2005 and covering a 28-month period, the other based on the "Sinjar Records", captured Al Qaeda files on 595 foreign fighters in Iraq from 2006 to 2007.
Whereas Tunisians accounted for only 1 per cent of foreign soldiers killed in Iraq in the 2005 study, they made up 16 per cent of the sample in Syria, second only to Libyans at 22 per cent and tied with Saudis.
The Tunisians killed in Syria include some who seem to have only recently developed the interest, or the ability, to participate in extremist groups.
The study, which was headed by Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, attributes the rise in Tunisian participants in a conflict seen by many devout Sunnis as a holy war to the fall of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali two years ago. This was followed by the rise to power of an Islamist-led government and the loosening of restrictions on hardline Islamist groups.
After Ben Ali's fall, "groups like Ansar Al Sharia in Tunisia have had new-found freedom to conduct missionary work, as well recruit and incite individuals to fight jihad abroad", says the report.
"Evidence aggregated during the present study indicates that Ansar Al Sharia not only openly celebrates the 'martyrdom' of Tunisian Islamists killed fighting in Syria, but moreover, has directly facilitated their departure and travel to the front line."
The report also notes that about 10 per cent of the sample are Egyptians, most of whom have connections with the Ansar Al Sharia extremist group in that country. The connections between the various extremist groups of that name, in Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia among other places, are opaque, but social-media interaction suggests a relationship of mutual moral support at the very least.
The report also describes the Syrian conflict as the third-largest mobiliser of foreign fighters in the past three decades, after the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the fight against US-led forces in Iraq. But, it notes, the Iraq war took six years to mobilise a number of fighters comparable to those now in Syria two years after the uprising began.
The surge in north African foreign fighters comes as concern grows over extremist movements in Nigeria, Algeria and the Sahel region, comprising Mali, Mauritania and Niger. The US State Department for the first time on Monday offered hefty rewards for information leading to the location of leaders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, who were the driving force behind last year's takeover of northern Mali, and Boko Haram, the Nigerian terror group.
Up to US$5 million (Dh18.36m) is offered for Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who claimed responsibility for the attack on the In Amenas oil and gas installation in Algeria in February, and up to $7m was offered for Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram.
afordham@thenational.ae