“In this case, we do know for example that a network that provides foreign fighters from Tunisia through Syria to Iraq was re-activated or re-established after the foreign fighter network in Iraq was damaged very significantly over the course of the last 6 months or so. And we know that for example four of the suicide bombers in the past couple of weeks were Tunisians and we captured one of the facilitators.”

Such were the words spoken by General David Petraeus in a Congressional hearing on Iraq. It is not everyday that one reads about Muslim terrorists and Tunisia within the same sentence. Such an occurrence raises the question: is Tunisia is major exporter of jihadis?

For the record, Tunisia is not the main exporter to Iraq or elsewhere. That dubious honor falls to Saudi Arabia. But Tunisia seems to export more than its fair share. Many European Islamic fundamentalists, some of whom openly preach violence, are also Tunisians. The country itself has also been involved in shot-outs and round-ups of terrorists.

Which raises the question of why Tunisia? The Ben Ali regime crushed the political Islam movement early in the 1990s. Since then Islamic fundamentalists have all gone into exile or underground. But, ironically, the staunch secularism of the regime may have created an opening for militant Islam, the kind practice by al-Qai’dah. The regime, until recently, allowed very little in the way of a public discussion or viewing of Islam. When many pious Tunisians could not find Islamic media at home, they turned to the Internet where they often found the extreme variety. Such a practice, coupled with the images of dead Muslims in Iraq and Palestine, may have radicalized many otherwise harmless and innocent youth.

The synagogue was attacked by al-Qai’dah in 2002.

The authorities are now trying to combat this by providing the nation’s first every Islamic radio station and television station.
There is also softening in other areas. Women wearing the hijab are no longer harassed, but Mosques still remain closed outside of prayer times.

Their certainly have been a radicalization among some Tunisian Muslims, and many of them have ventures overseas to engage in acts of terrorism. The country has clearly become an exported. All this means is that the Tunisian government and more importantly society as a whole must combat the ideology that states that terrorism is an okay way to vent ones opposition to U.S. foreign policy. Likewise, it would help if American stopped embarking on such destructive policies. Tunisian families must educate their children that killing innocents is harma [sinful] in Islam and that there are other ways, peaceful way, to register one’s political views.