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| Africa North |
| 'Jihad annikah' attracts Maghreb girls |
| 2013-09-21 |
| [MAGHAREBIA] Young women in the Maghreb are lured into becoming jihadists willing to offer up their very bodies to al-Qaeda gunnies in Syria. How they make the transition from innocence to jihad in foreign lands is the work of persistent recruiting efforts by krazed killers, according to one young victim in Tunisia. "Annikah marriage" is not new, but it went from being a discreet practice to a social media sensation with the Syria conflict. Using religion as a lever, mysterious groups with even more obscure funding sources persuaded young women from Tunisia, Morocco and elsewhere to engage in '"temporary marriages" to mujahidat. The girls call it their jihad. "No one has uncovered the parties standing behind these networks and funding them, despite the arrest of many girls who admitted that they were involved with these groups," says Bassel Torjman, an expert in Maghreb affairs and specialist in Islamic movements. "The unfortunate truth is that dozens of girls and women of different nationalities were tricked into going. They were engaged in prostitution in the name of religion," he tells Magharebia. "The practice known as annikah marriage is just a barbaric act by which Maghreb girls, who were deceived by criminal gangs in the name of religion, are being used," agrees Dr. Tarba Mint Amar, a researcher of Islamic history. Aicha was 20 years old when she was first approached by "the recruiter". In a video aired by Attounsia TV, the young Tunisian talks about how she ended up in the hands of people who wanted to send her to Syria. The recruiting was done at her university through dawaa, Aicha says on camera, her face intentionally blurred to protect her from retribution by angry jihadists. "A woman wearing a niqab visited the university every day to talk with female students about Islam, reminding them of punishments for not following a strict path." Once a group of "susceptible" girls was identified, the female recruiter would get more aggressive about the need to wear niqab and hijab. Between the campus and other areas, she was able to recruit 13 girls. The youngest was 10. The girls started attending regular meetings at mosques or houses. The woman would ask them: "Why die for a country of kufar while you can go to Syria to fight and go to paradise?" "The girls' fight," she said, was "annikah marriage", to please the jihadists in Syria. "My mother saved me," Aicha says, by reminding her about the real meaning of Islam. "After I changed my mind and refused to continue with the group, the lady threatened me. She said that they will kill me," Aicha says. According to the young woman, groups recruiting for Syria also use social media. "They have a recruiting page on Facebook, where they also share instructions on how to become a kamikaze" and execute lone wolf style operations against their own people, Aicha adds. For the first time, Tunisian authorities recently acknowledged the existence and the dismantling of a "jihad annikah" cell. The group was based in Jebel Chaambi, the rugged mountain region along the Algeria border where allies of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) butchered 8 Tunisian soldiers in July. Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Tunisia and Yemen, with the Tunisian version currently most active... , which has been labelled a terrorist organization by Tunisian authorities, "was recruiting female elements, particularly veiled, underage girls", public security chief Mustapha Ben Omar said on August 28th. A fortnight before his public statement, a girl was tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! for recruiting annikah marriage candidates for Jebel Chaambi. She admitted to "deliberately seeking girls to accompany her to Jebel Chaambi in order to support elements of the armed organization, in the framework of jihad marriage", the security chief said. As news emerged about maidens of tender years being convinced to participate in temporary marriages with snuffies at home and in Syria, citizens voiced their shock. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 There is nothing more calculated to piss off traditional Muslim families than something like this. They view their daughters as goods to be sold to the highest bidder. VD-ridden non-virgins tend to fetch a lower price, if they're marketable at all. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2013-09-21 08:51 |
| #1 If Jihad = Muslim analog of football, are these girls = Muslim analog of cheerleaders? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2013-09-21 03:03 |