Eight months ago, the Tunisian government officially designated Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) as a terrorist organization. Since then, Tunis has cracked down on the group’s activities, going after both its dawa campaign (i.e., proselytization and social-welfare efforts) and any links members have to terrorist plots. On the whole, AST’s public response has been to keep relatively quiet. Yet recent developments indicate that the group may be rebranding itself as Shabab al-Tawhid (ST; the Youth of Pure Monotheism), a shift that would have important implications for efforts to counter Tunisian jihadists and their associates in Libya.

SHIFTING GEARS

Within a week of the August designation, AST largely ceased releasing updates about its dawa campaign in Tunisia. The group may still be conducting lower-level dawa in rural areas outside the state’s reach, but if so, it is no longer publicizing such activity. The main messages it has put out via its Twitter account have been declarations of solidarity with arrested ”brothers,” repeated calls for patience, and quotes from both traditional Islamic sources (the Quran and sunna) and ideological figures (e.g., Ibn Taymiyah, Sayyed Qutb, and Abu Qatada al-Filistini).

Indeed, AST has kept a low profile compared to its modus operandi before the designation; its only prominent announcement was leader Abu Ayyad al-Tunisi’s message of support for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the jihadist group deemed too extreme by senior al-Qaeda leaders and their official Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.

Until recently, this relative silence made it difficult to discern what was going on within AST, but new information indicates it might be rebranding itself under the Shabab al-Tawhid banner in Tunisia as well as Libya, where Abu Ayyad is now believed to be based. This shift could signal to exiled members in Libya that AST’s command structures are increasingly coming under the purview of its sister organization, Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL).

SHABAB AL-TAWHID MEDIA

On March 4, a new online media outlet was established called Shabab al-Tawhid Media (STM). Its main purposes thus far have been to serve as a ”pulpit of the Sunni people in Tunisia” and express support for ISIS. Much of STM’s early content consisted of reposted material from AST and ISIS (including English translations of ISIS releases), as well as information from Tunisian foreign fighters in Syria and ISIS-sympathetic messaging. For example, when the central division of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) expressed support for ISIS, STM highlighted the message. It also posted original content from online jihadist ideologue Abu Saad al-Amili, who has been a huge supporter of and advisor to AST since the organization was publicly announced three years ago. STM even released new exclusive content from AST spokesman Sayf al-Din al-Rayis. Such posts suggested that the new media group had ties to AST and the Tunisian foreign fighter network, which are themselves intertwined. The creation of a new outlet might also have been a soft way for AST to reemerge without the baggage of stating direct affiliation.

STM did not gain broad public notoriety until April 19, when it released a video showing Mohamed Bechikh, a Tunisian embassy employee kidnapped in Libya on March 21. In a caption introducing the footage of Bechikh, STM delivered a blunt message: ”To the Tunisian government, as you capture from us we capture from you, as you kill from us we kill from you.” The camera then turned to a crying Bechikh, who pleaded for Tunis to ”negotiate seriously,” saying ”they can kill me…I want to go back to Tunisia.” In releasing the video, STM was apparently seeking the release of Libyan militants captured by Tunisia in 2011. This suggests that while the media outlet was originally established by and for Tunisians, its ”brothers” in Libya — where part of the ST network is based — have by now either joined or taken over certain parts of STM. A credible source inside Libya has confirmed this reading of the situation.

A day after releasing the video, STM voluntarily took down its Twitter and Facebook accounts, probably realizing that it did not want the high level of scrutiny the footage would invite. It reopened its Twitter account a few days later but deleted the tweet containing the video; it then took down its Twitter account a second time.

ST AS AST?

While ST members in Libya have apparently been involved in operational actions such as the kidnapping and active media campaigns supporting the AST-ISIS nexus, members in Tunisia seem to be playing a more reconstructional/maintenance role. In a manner similar to how AST used to organize itself on Facebook, with separate pages for different branches throughout the country, ST has several layers of representation in Tunisia, including in individual towns, educational institutions, and mosques:

• Towns: Jebel al-Ahmar, Le Kram, Sfax, Sidi Hassine, Guettaya, Megrine, Subaytilah, Bou Salem, Mateur, El Fahs, Hammam Zriba, Hammamet, Jelma, Jemmal, Ksar Hellal, Nefza, Tebourba, Dougga, Foussana, Medenine, Sidi Bouzid, Menzel Hayet, and Kalaa Kebira.

• Colleges and mosques: Gafsa University, the March 2nd Institute, Bilal bin Rabah Mosque (in the Suroor neighborhood of Gafsa), the University of Sousse, the University of Sfax, the Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology in Mateur, the University of Nabeul, the Higher Institute of Nursing Sciences in Sousse, the Vocational Training Center in Mateur, New Neighborhood Mosque in Tunis, the College of Medicine in Sfax, the Higher Institute of Computer and Communication Technologies, and the Higher Institute of Technological Studies in al-Qayrawan.

This highlights ST’s diverse nature in Tunisia, showing how its network is national in scope just as AST’s was prior to the government crackdown.

The material on ST’s Facebook pages is similar to STM’s content: global jihadist in nature, with a pro-AST and pro-ISIS bent. While the pages appear to be run independently of any central messaging hub, it is unlikely that they are random grassroots efforts by disparate individuals across Tunisia — their patterns of duplicate messaging are not seen in any other country when searching for ”Shabab al-Tawhid” on Facebook. This suggests that they represent a highly coordinated effort to maintain AST’s networks inside Tunisia even though the group itself is illegal. To be sure, these networks have been decentralized somewhat, but that is likely a deliberate security move to obscure the connections between them. The main purpose of this shift is to help adherents maintain solidarity and preserve their ability to organize and continue dawa work on a smaller scale, allowing them to reach out to local populations without the same level of scrutiny from the Tunisian state.

This plan is reminiscent of the approach taken by global jihadist networks that have been banned in other open societies such as Britain and the United States. For example, the British group al-Muhajiroun is well known for establishing multiple front names and obscuring its various affiliates in order to continue organizing and operating whenever the government outlaws branches of its network. Although AST leader Abu Ayyad was not known to be part of the al-Muhajiroun network when he lived in London in the 1990s, he is certainly familiar with this tactic and may now be applying it in Tunisia and Libya. Whatever the case, AST seems to have found an alternative route for expanding its reach despite being banned.

It is unknown how much the ST networks in Tunisia and Libya interact, or how much control Libyan members have over the messaging of exiled Tunisian AST members. What can be ascertained with confidence is that the network is still active, despite Tunis designating AST as a terrorist organization and conducting raids against its members for involvement in alleged terrorist plots. This illustrates that a completely securitized approach will not eradicate AST, since the group’s adherents are true believers who have the patience to wait things out and organize on a much smaller scale.

Aaron Y. Zelin is the Richard Borow Fellow at The Washington Institute and the Rena and Sami David Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. He also runs the website Jihadology.net.

On 27 April, 2011, a blog titled the al-Qayrawan Media Foundation (QMF) was created, and two days later a corresponding Facebook page was established. Then, on 15 May, another Facebook page under the name Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia was launched, coinciding with the announcement that a conference would be convened in Tunis on 21 May.

This is the public story of AST’s emergence, and since 2011, the group’s visibility has grown significantly; the group has courted controversy through its protests against blasphemy, been accused of involvement in political violence, and been banned by the state. Yet the organisation remains poorly understood, not least with regards to its real origins, the story of which stretches several years further back than 2011, runs much deeper into Tunisian politics than has otherwise been disclosed, and has up to now stayed largely concealed.

PRISON PLANS

In late August 2013 and early September 2013, I had the opportunity to meet one of the individuals (who will remain anonymous) present at the actual founding of AST. The event took place in 2006 in a Tunisian prison.

According to the source, when Hamadi Jebali — a senior member of the Islamist organisation al-Nahda who went on to become Prime Minister (2011-2013) — was released from jail in February 2006, some more radical Islamists believed they too could be leaving prison soon. They began planning for their mission once on the outside, and though the group did not have a name for it at the time, 20 Islamists, including AST’s future leader, Abu Iyadh al-Tunisi, agreed to create a new organisation.

The group’s release in fact took longer than expected, and it was only in March 2011, following the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, that they were pardoned and set free. Once outside, the group organised, gathering in Abu Iyadh’s house, and began implementing the plans they had been working on for the previous five years. AST started outreach efforts in Tunis, Sousse, Sidi Bouzid, al-Qayrawan, and Bizerte as well as making contact with the Salafi cleric Shaykh al-Khatib al-Idrissi.

Although there is more public distance between al-Idrissi and AST currently, when AST first began, al-Idrissi promoted its existence and early activities via his official Facebook page and was loosely affiliated with AST’s original media outlet QMF. Al-Idrissi is one of, if not the most, influential Salafi clerics in Tunisia. In 1985, he went to Saudi Arabia and formally trained with some of the most important Salafi clerics of the modern era including ‘Abd al-’Aziz bin ‘Abd Allah bin Baz. AST’s early outreach to al-Idrissi highlights the fact it wanted strong backing from the ‘ulama — the class of Muslim legal scholars — to legitimise its cause.

Since spring 2012, al-Idrissi has been less public in his support for AST, and around a similar time, AST established a new media outlet named al-Bayyariq Media Foundation. It appears that al-Idrissi’s current relationship with AST is more as an unaffiliated outside spiritual guide and that Abu Iyadh is the main link between AST and al-Idrissi.

                                                                                           Bild ovan: Abou Lyadh Ansar Al-Sharias ledare

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

In addition to these early efforts, AST also had meetings and communications with al-Nahda, now Tunisia’s biggest political party, including with its leader Rachid Ghannouchi. According the founding member of AST I spoke with, relations between the Salafis and al-Nahda went back to the time that members of each group were in prison together. They reportedly passed letters to one another and were in close communication, though good relations may have been kept for cynical purposes. For example, a letter from Ali Larayedh, Tunisia’s current Prime Minister, to Nur al-Din Ganduz, another senior al-Nahda figure, allegedly explained that the Salafis were beneficial to al-Nahda because they make them look better and more moderate in comparison.Following the overthrow of Ben Ali and the release of the prisoners, dialogue between factions within al-Nahda and AST continued. The individual I spoke with said that in 2011 he personally attended two meetings at Ghannouchi’s home in el-Menzah, just north of Tunis. In these meetings, Ghannouchi allegedly told Abu Iyadh to encourage the youth of AST to join the national army to infiltrate it, and to get another group of youth do the same with the National Guard.

This claim is less surprising when one bears in mind the leaked video that surfaced in October 2012 in which Ghannouchi provides strategic advice to the Salafis. In one part of the video, the al-Nahda leader warns, ”the Army is in their [the secularists] hands. We cannot guarantee the police and the army.” It is possible Ghannouchi did not want to risk his own cadres, but saw a back door to controlling elements within the security apparatus by using the Salafis and the zeal of their youth members.

This relationship between al-Nahda and AST has since soured, and the al-Nahda-led government designated AST as a terrorist organisation on 27 August, 2013.

BROTHERS AND ARMS

In the two and a half years since AST emerged in Tunisian politics, the organisation has been involved in a serious campaign for hearts and minds publicly. Yet it is also believed to have been involved in more nefarious and concealed activities, though these have been difficult to confirm. The founding member of AST, however, provided some insights into these shadier aspects of the group and suggested he quit AST because of ”what was behind the curtain.”

He confirmed that AST has a military wing, thus contradicting one of Abu Iyadh’s famous statements that Tunisia is a land of da’wah (meaning preaching or invitation) and not jihad, and his claim that AST does not have or obtain weapons. The individual also noted that the relationship of AST with Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) and Ansar al-Sharia in Egypt (ASE) is like a ”spider web,” explaining that they all know one another — presumably referring to the groups’ respective leaders. Further, the source said certain members of AST, ASL, and ASE travelled together to Gaza and northern Sinai in 2012. He did not say that they went for military training — though it should not necessarily be ruled out considering Tunisians have reportedly trained in Libya with ASL — but rather to meet Palestinian Salafis who advised them on issues related to administration, organisation, and management.

When analysing semi-clandestine Salafi organisations, one needs to bear in mind what one knows for sure and what one doesn’t, especially as the latter category often overshadows the former. And there are still many questions to answer regarding AST, such as its relationship with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its role in recent violence in Tunisia. However, as AST continues to be important in Tunisia despite its official ban, hopefully filling in some previously concealed gaps regarding its history, its relations and its strategies will help us understand the mysterious group a little better.

Aaron Y. Zelin is the Richard Borow Fellow at The Washington Institute.