Abstract
The civil war in Syria created the conditions for the emergence of the Islamic State (IS). It started attracting fighters from all over the region and later took the control of parts of Iraq. Militants came from all over the world, although regional countries represented the most important sources of recruitments for IS. In this context, Tunisia and Morocco played a very significant role as a very substantial number of IS fighters come from these two countries. As such, and the case of Tunisia and the attacks it suffered in 2015 are very indicative, this issue will remain at the forefront of the security agenda for both countries in the foreseeable future. In the very beginning, both countries turned a blind eye on militants’ movement to Syria and Iraq, mainly to reduce the burden on national security services. However, once IS took over parts of Syria and Iraq, it was clear that the nature of the threat was changing and both countries started adopting a more proactive approach to fighting terrorism. The background of Tunisian and Moroccan militants is often similar: they mostly come from impoverished suburban areas and neglected rural and mountainous regions, often distant from the actual centres of – either formal or informal – economic and political power. However, the outcomes of these efforts have been different: Tunisia, as shown by the attacks that the country suffered in 2015, has so far struggled to find an effective solution, and the establishment of IS fighters in neighbouring Libya represents a further threat. Moreover, many IS fighters in Libya are Tunisians who either moved from Syria and Iraq or reached Libya straight from Tunisia. In addition, it is very likely that the changes that occurred in the post-Ben Ali security forces in Tunisia reduced the security services’ capacities of tackling these issues. In Morocco, instead, efforts have been more successful, but in the medium term this will continue to represent a substantial threat, whose impact goes well beyond the narrower security domain.
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Notes
- 1.
As noted by Gregory White, this was the case, particularly for Tunisia. The historical characterisation of Tunisia’s elite has been pro-Western, relatively liberal, and secular in its sociopolitical and religious orientations, and this was in stark contrast not only with other elements within Tunisian society, but also compared to the wider region. Tunisia’s ruling elites also tended to be more unified and homogenous than Moroccan counterparts, in which groups with different sociopolitical outlooks and diverging political and economic interests used to coexist under the control of the king. Religious leaders were all associated with the monarchy and Makhzen. Given the king’s religious legitimacy, in Morocco Islamist groups were largely marginalised, particularly in the first decades of the independence and Hassan II had a chance to pursue his modernisation plan that, nevertheless, brought many religious leaders to criticise progressively the king for inadequate religious leadership and capitulation to Western interests (White 2001, pp. 34–37).
- 2.
Islam practised in North Africa is largely based on the Mālikī legal school of law, predominant in the region. Its founder was Malik ibn Anas al-Asbahi, in the eighth century in the Arabian Peninsula. It puts a significant emphasis on hadiths and the actual practices of the aṣ-ṣaḥābah (the Companions in Medina) as sources of law. Malik was known to have used ra’y, the personal judgement of the scholar, and qiyās, the process of deductive analogy. While these features are also shared by the Hanafi School, this approach put the Maliki School at odds with the Hanbali School, which is instead focused on a strict interpretation of Shari’a and did not accept jurist discretion, nor did accept analogies as a suitable methodology.
- 3.
For a general view of the stratified and complex Tunisian identity, see Abbassi (2005).
- 4.
The Neo-Destour (New Constitutional Liberal Party – Al-Ḥizb Al-Ḥurr Ad-Dustūrī Al-Jadīd – Nouveau Parti libéral constitutionnel) was the major political party of Tunisia at the time of independence. It emerged following a split of the Destour party in 1934: it was actually the most active and radical sectors of the party using the newspaper. After the rebranding as PSD in the 1960s, President Ben Ali would rename the party again, becoming Rassemblement Constitutionel Démocratique (RCD).
- 5.
The original text (in French) is accessible at: http://www.cmf.org.tn/pdf/textes_ref/reglementations/Version_FR/blanchis_argent_lutte_ter/loi_terrorisme_blanchiment.pdf.
- 6.
Although the Tunisian transition to postcolonialism was not as bloody and violent as the Algerian fight for independence, it nevertheless had some tense moment. For instance, this is the case of the so-called Bizerte crisis, when Tunisia enforced a blockade on the local French naval base, with the final aim to force its evacuation. This prompted a crisis with France that ended in an armed clash.
- 7.
Projet de loi organique n° 22/2015 relatif à la lutte contre le terrorisme et la répression du blanchiment d’argent. Full text available at: http://www.legislation-securite.tn/fr/node/34061.
- 8.
Projet loi na 86.14 modifiant et complétant les dispositions du code pénal et de la procédure pénale relatives à la lutte contre le terrorisme. For the complete text, see: http://www.sgg.gov.ma/Portals/0/lois/PL_86-14_Fr.pdf.
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Cristiani, D. (2017). A Problem for Tomorrow? Tunisia, Morocco, and Foreign Fighters. In: Romaniuk, S., Grice, F., Irrera, D., Webb, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Counterterrorism Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55769-8_46
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