Women emerging as a new threat to Tunisia’s security

Aya Ezz                                         

Women are turning into a new tool in the hands of terrorist groups operating in Tunisia.

The North African country’s security services succeeded this week in intercepting a terrorist cell made up of a number of women affiliates of the so-called Ajnad al-Khilafa organization.

The cell, the Tunisian government said, planned to carry out a series of terrorist attacks in different parts of Tunisia.

Tunisia has been suffering a lot at the hands of female terrorist recruits since the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011.

Some of the fiercest terrorist attacks that were carried out in the country since then were at the hands of females.

Those perpetrating the attacks mostly belonged to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria which succeeded in recruiting hundreds of women in Tunisia.

Beginnings

Tunisian women started to be drawn into the orbit of terrorist organizations as of the 1970s, according to the Washington Post.

It said during this period, Tunisian male terrorists took their wives with them to Afghanistan to join in the al-Qaeda which was fighting against the Soviet occupation of the country.

After the 2011 revolution, Salafist groups occupied greater space on the Tunisian social scene, calling for imposing the Islamic head cover on women and getting rid of laws that violate Islamic rules.

Thousands of Tunisian women bought into these ideas and wore the full face veil. They even started promoting this cover among other women.

Tunisian mosques were filled with groups of women advocating these ideas. The same groups called for imposing Islamic laws.

However, some of these women joined terrorist groups and became active in staging terrorist attacks.

A terrorist attack was staged by a woman, for the first time in Tunisia, on October 29, 2018.

The perpetrator, Mona Qebla, 30, blew herself up near a police checkpoint on Habib Bourguiba Street.

The attack left 20 people injured and the terrorist dead.