The military wing of Nahda: Will it frustrate the chances of Tunisia’s MB in the elections of 2019?
Wednesday 03/October/2018 - 02:54 PM
Sarah Rashad and Duaa Imam
El-Nahda Islamic Movement, which is the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Tunisia, is again receiving accusations related to its involvement in terrorist
attacks.
Reza Al-Radawi, a member of the Committee for the Defense of Tunisian
Politicians killed in 2013, Shukri Belaid and Mohamed El Barahmi, revealed
Tuesday at a press conference new details on the relationship of the movement
to the assassination.
Al-Radawi said that he found new information about what is known as the
"special organization" of el-Nahda movement, and revealed that this
entity was initially called "the security apparatus" with a proposal
from elements of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
He said that the organization comprising six people headed by the leader of the
movement, Rashid Ghannouchi, received a training course in intelligence by the
delegation of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, and with the purpose of
camouflage it was said at the time that the delegation arrived to provide a
course in agriculture.
The lawyer pointed out that the aforementioned session of the Brotherhood
enabled al-Nahda to spy on official institutions in the State for the benefit
of foreign bodies, including Italian intelligence, especially spying on the US
and French ambassadors.
The Tunisian lawyer went further, referring to the leaders of the movement
supervising this entity, namely Mustafa Khadr and Reza Baroni, and other
leaders who have a depth and historical extension of the movement.
In the case of Mustapha Khadr specifically, Al-Ridawi said that the Italian
intelligence asked him to mediate, at the beginning of the Syrian crisis, with
the Al-Nasra Front, the al-Qaeda branch in Syria, to persuade it to release an
Italian journalist whom it detained. He explained that Khadr returned to
Al-Nasra Front and the journalist was already released.
Old charges
It is noteworthy that these accusations, which came this time detailed by the
Tunisian lawyer, were not the first. The movement has received over the years
accusations of involvement in transactions supporting terrorism, the latest of
which coincided with a document attributed to the Embassy of Qatar in Tunisia.
The document was circulated by activists on social media network sites at the
beginning of last month and included the role of the embassy in the training
and travel of 1800 young Moroccans to Syria, in cooperation with al-Nahda.
The document was signed and sealed by Acting Qatari Charge d'affaires Nayef
Abdullah Al-Emadi, and addressed to the Department of Arab Affairs at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Doha. The coordination role of Al-Nahda Movement
included receiving volunteers in a port to transport them to Libya, Turkey and
Syria.
In 2014, the movement was forced to issue an official statement in a Kuwaiti
newspaper accusing Ghannouchi of involvement in supporting the organization. It
also linked the accusations to the parliamentary elections that the country was
preparing to hold, claiming that there was a plan to influence them in the
elections.
Hamma Hammami, a spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), was also behind the charges of condemning Al-Nahda. In a
radio interview dated March 21, 2017, al-Hamami said that the movement was
dreaming of the return of the sixth Caliphate between Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and
Syria.
Although these condemnations have been made and expanded over time, and in many
cases based on official documents that strengthen their position, the Tunisian
state has been silent on them, preferring not to clash with the movement.
This time, it seems that the situation has changed. The accusations come just a
week after the Tunisian president, Beji Caid Essebsi, announced a freeze on the
consensus between his party, Nedaa Tunis, and the Nahda movement on the
backdrop of the movement’s standing up by the Tunisian President.
