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| Africa: North | |
| Tunisia's terror prevention efforts | |
| 2004-05-22 | |
| Alone among the nations of North Africa, Tunisia appears to have found the formula for terrorism prevention. In the 1980s President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali reached out to an Islamist political party, al-Nahda, in an effort to include the group in the Tunisian political system. He was met with terrorism. The group placed bombs in tourist hotels and in the ruling party headquarters. Authorities also discovered a plot to overthrow the government and to make Tunisia an Islamic state. Ben Ali reacted swiftly and with force. He declared the party illegal and jailed its leaders and most adherents. Since that time Tunisia's proactive anti-terrorist policy has effectively safeguarded the country from Islamic extremist terrorism. The country, however, received a scare in 2002 when a suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with cooking gas cylinders into the front of a synagogue in Djerba, a Tunisian tourist island. In the attack on the synagogue, the oldest in Africa, 16 people died. The subsequent investigation revealed the suicide bomber was a Tunisian citizen who grew up in France. Two accomplices, a Polish convert to Islam and a Moroccan, were arrested in Paris. A group connected with al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack with letters to Arabic newspapers in London. Islamic extremists, however, have not surrendered totally. A band calling itself the Tunisian Combatant Group and connected to al-Qaeda operates mostly in Western Europe, particularly in Italy. It functions mostly as a recruiter for Muslim fighters and a false document facility. The group had plans to attack the Tunisian and United States Embassies in Rome, but they were found out and the attacks prevented. President Ben Ali has waged a persistent, forceful and effective campaign on a number of fronts to forestall the formation of terrorist groups in Tunisia. As head of an avowedly secular state, Ben Ali early on recognized the threat of Islamic extremism. He, first of all, undercut the extremists by making religious affair the business of the state through the establishment of a Religious Affairs Ministry. He also set up the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC), which convened in April 2004, producing a ringing repudiation of terrorism. The concluding document of the conference emphasized that Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance. Recognizing that extremism and terrorism are also the products of social and economic forces, Ben Ali has waged a campaign to improve the Tunisian quality of life. Throughout his long term in office, he has pursued policies of national reconciliation, including a progressive program of rights for women. Ben Ali has found much success on the economic front. In the 1990s Tunisia was the most powerful economy in North Africa, with a growth rate of 5 percent. It has the highest per capita income in North Africa, a significant accomplishment in a North African country without oil resources. The country has high education standards and high home ownership rates and is the second most computerized country in Africa after South Africa. The country has also benefited from a tough anti-terrorism law enforcement regime. In April four high school students, a university student and a university teacher ran afoul of a December 2003 anti terrorist law and received long prison sentences. The group was planning a terrorist attack on a coast guard post, after their arrest, authorities discovered arms and explosives training manuals in their possession. Some Tunisians, however, have escaped the reach of Ben Ali's anti-terrorism policies. The identification of a Tunisian as the mastermind of the Madrid train bombings is a case in point. In Italy a Tunisian was said to have been the head of an al-Qeada European network. Also in Italy, a Tunisian, a defector from al-Qaeda, provided Italian authorities with important information on the plans and activities of al-Qeada cells in that country.
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| Posted by:Dan Darling |