01 April 2013 - orsam

many salafist jihadist movement members
and clashed with militants on the Algeria
border.
While the Abou Iyadh Facebook post was
the first direct threat to the government
from the radical group, tensions between
the two sides have been rising since last
December, when embassy attack suspects
Bechir Golli and Mohammed Bakhti died
in Mornaguia prison after a 50-day hunger
strike.
Salafist jihadists blamed the government
for their deaths.
"Our relations with Ennahda has been
severed in full because that party is not
Islamist as they so claim," salafist jihadist
leader and Ansar al-Sharia member and
spokesperson Mohamed Anis Chaieb told
arabstoday.net.
attacked Ennahda for failing to use Islamic
Sharia as a main source of legislation,
international relations professor
Mohamed Ben Zekri said.
Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi
responded strongly to al-Zawahri,
describing him as a catastrophe for Islam
and Muslims.
"There is an intellectual and doctrinal
difference between the salafist jihadists
and Ennahda," Ben Zekri told Magharebia.
"That difference started to appear a while
ago, and each side is trying to use this
conflict to win the support of the biggest
possible number of Tunisians."
Tunisian citizens, meanwhile, are voicing
concerns that the conflict between the
salafists and Ennahda threatens the
country's political and social stability.
"This is because they embrace the civil
state concept, and there is nothing in their
programmes indicating that they are
adopting the Islamic rule model," he
added.
The battle between the two sides erupted
when al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri
"Has Tunisia become a game for the
Islamists and Salafists?" student Faten
Marouani wondered. "Will the violence
that they want be the factor that gets the
country out of the bottleneck and realise
the Tunisian people's hopes for security,
stability and economic and political
prosperity?"
Sayfa 29