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Al-Ahed Telegram

Families of Tunisian Fighters Detained in Syria Mobilize

Families of Tunisian Fighters Detained in Syria Mobilize
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Hussein Mortada

Speaking of foreign fighters in Syria breaks no ground. Yet the freshly brought up case about tens of Tunisians flocking through the Turkish-Syrian borders to train and fight in Syria has made the headlines, after their incensed relatives and families mobilized.

Families of Tunisian Fighters Detained in Syria Mobilize
The general climate in post-revolution Tunisia has helped spread this phenomenon, considering the laxity and reluctance of ruling An-Nahda
Movement in dealing with Jihadi salafism, mostly that financed by the Gulf.

Qatar's showers of funds on Tunisian personalities and associations--with kickbacks of USD 3000 each for every recruited and trained Tunisian--just add to this craze.

In details, the Tunisian chargé in these associations isolates young men in camps in the desert between Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria, to be later deported to Turkey. In Turkey, a specialized ring receives them and transfers them into Syria after a fleet training in Libya's district of Ghadames, some 70 kilometers away from the Tunisian frontiers. The newly trained fighters get afterwards transferred to al-Zawiya for 20 days, before heading to Istanbul via Barika port, and then to Syria, specifically to al-Nusra Front!

This is what the French weekly publication, Le Canard Enchaîné, has revealed. The satirical newspaper has unearthed that Salafist fighters are trained in three camps in Libya before heading to Syria battlefields.

"The French army intelligence services are watching camps in South Libya and receiving hundreds of Arabs and Africans who were trained in more than a camp before heading to Syria or to the coast in north the country," the newspaper has quoted a French diplomat as confirming.


The Tunisian popular mobilization over this matter did not stop. Just recently, a group of civil society organizations in Tunisia and Syria agreed on an initiative to cease bloodshed and shun hatred and violence. They decided to stage joint work to help the Tunisian Diaspora in Syria and Syrians in Tunisia overcome the problems they are encountering, in coordination with both the Syrian and Tunisian governments, and to intervene to release the Tunisian detainees who were lured into the conflict but whose hands are clean of blood.

Indeed, the initiative organizers arrived and lengthily met in Damascus, with the participation of the Tunisian Forum of Economic and Social Rights, the National Committee of Tunisian Lawyers, Tunisians for Freedom Union, and the Syrian Observatory of Violence and Terrorism Victims.
A closing statement was issued, echoing conferees' strong belief in the right of people to solve their internal economic, social, and political crises, and their right to choose their leaders in a democratic way through ballot boxes, without foreign interference.

Conferees also spurned terrorism, whether in thoughts or through arms, as a "jeopardy threatening the countries of disintegration," and called upon the Syrian government to issue amnesty for Tunisian prisoners and detainees who had chosen to throw their weapons.
A number of relatives of the Tunisian detainees, who had accompanied the delegation in Syria, visited their sons in Kafar Sousah police station in Damascus, and sat with them for more than three hours.
Detainees were reported crying and apologizing to their families.


"I came to Syria after I learned that my son was here. I came to visit him in prison. God willing, he will return to Tunisia with us. I, in the name of Tunisian mothers, ask Syria for forgiveness," mother of Hussein Bilal, a Tunisian detainee in Syria, told al-Ahed correspondent.

"I came to my son, Haikal Toueiki, who is jailed in Syria. Today I am very happy because I will see my son. I thank the entire Syrian people who received us generously and we ask for forgiveness, on behalf of Tunisia," another mother said.

A Syria source told al-Ahed that the Syrian government was working hand in hand with the civil society in Syria and the international organizations to address the issue of Tunisian fighters wishing to hand themselves to authorities and retreat from the battlefields. He noted that a mechanism for a safe and sound withdrawal was being mulled as per the enforced laws and international agreements.

Source: al-Ahed, Translated by website team

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