TUNIS: The head of a radical Salafist group in Tunisia has threatened to wage war against the government, led by moderate Islamist party Ennahda, accusing it in a message posted online of un-Islamic policies.
“To the tyrants who think they are Islamists... know that the stupid things you are doing are dragging you to war,” said Abu Iyadh, the fugitive leader of Ansar Al Sharia who is wanted by the police over deadly unrest last year.
“Your war is not against our young people but against religion,” he said, in a statement published on the jihadist group’s website.
Abu Iyadh, whose real name is Seif Allah Ibn Hussein, is accused of organising numerous acts of violence and has been on the run since September, after an attack by Islamist protesters on the US embassy in September in which four of them died.
The authorities have hardened their position towards extremists in recent months, notably by stepping up military operations against jihadists with suspected links to Al Qaeda who are hiding in the western region of Kasserine that borders Algeria.
AFP
