The military wing of Nahda: Will it frustrate the chances of Tunisia’s MB in the elections of 2019?

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.