Tunisian Terrorists Confess to Entering Syria via Turkey with Coordination between So-Called Free Army and Al-Qaeda

Tunisian Terrorists Confess to Entering Syria via Turkey with Coordination between So-Called Free Army and Al-Qaeda May 21, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Tunisian terrorists confessed to entering Syria through Turkey with coordination between the militias of the so-called "free army" and Al-Qaeda, and to being trained in Libya and other places. Tunisian terrorist Wissam bin Kamal bin Halima, born in 1992 in the village of Manzel Kamel in Tunisia, said that met a Lebanese man calling himself Abu Hadi who was a member of Fateh al-Islam group and corresponded with him. Abu Hadi incited Wissam to become part of Jihad, sending him videos about al-Qaeda then broaching the subject of the situation of Syria and the idea to go there, eventually talking him into going to Syria to meet people who were fighting in Iraq and other areas. As per Abu Hadi's instructions, Wissam travelled to Turkey and was contacted by a man called Abu Ahmad in Istanbul, who instructed him to go to Antioch and meet a man there who took him to a border area where they were joined by five men from Bangladesh who also wanted to enter Syria, and they walked across the borders through the mountains and were received by another man who told them that they will join a camp belonging to the "free army" for training. In turn, Tunisian terrorist Bilal bin Abdullah Mohammad Marzuki, born in 1980 in Tunis, said that he had once visited Syria with the goal of entering Iraq but failed, causing him to return to Tunisia, and later he watched TV channels inciting Syrians and non-Syrians to join the "Jihad" in Syria, and he decided to do so. First, Marzuki went to Libya for training, joining a camp of Salafi Jihadists who trained him in using weapons including AK-47 rifles, handguns and RPGs, then returned to Tunisia and contacted with the aforementioned Abu Ahmad who instructed him to travel to Antioch, where he too was smuggled into Syria across the borders. Marzuki pointed out that Abu Ahmad was a member of Al-Qaeda in charge of coordinating between the "free army" and groups in Syria that are affiliated with Al-Qaeda. For his part, Tunisian terrorist Zuheir bin Suheil al-Sakelsi, born in 1986 in Tunis, said that after watching TV channels and the Fatwas of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Adnan al-Arour and Abdullah al-Sheikh, he wanted to join the "Jihad" in Libya, and so he was snuck across the borders into a Libya by a relief group and joined other fighters in a camp where he was trained for 20 days on using handguns and assault rifles, and then he joined the fighting then was smuggled back to Tunisia after the fall Muammar al-Gaddafi. After returning to Tunisia, he watched reports about Syria on al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya and France 24 and religious channels that called for Jihad against the Syrian Army, while mosque Imams in Tunis were inciting people to go to "Jihad in Syria and aiding the Syrians" and so he decided to travel to Syria. Al-Sakelsi contacted a man called Abu Issa who instructed him to go to Antioch, and there he met a man speaking with a Syrian accent who referred him over to another man who in turn handed him over to five smugglers who took him through the mountains and across the borders, with him arriving in Lattakia. While staying in a house in Lattakia, al-Sakelsi met Abu Ahmad who, according to what Abu Issa told him, was a leading figure in Al-Qaeda. Ahmad asked al-Sakelsi  if he had received any training, and he told him that he fought in Libya, so the latter told him that he was to be sent to a Jihadist group affiliated with the "free army" immediately. Tunisian Sources: Tunisian Terrorists Arrested in Syria Were Recruited by Tunisian, Libyan and Qatari Sides Tunisian sources in Washington stressed that the Tunisian terrorists who were arrested on the Syrian territories had previously been detained in the Tunisian prisons to be later released by the current Tunisian government after the intervention of leader of al-Nahda Party, Rachid al-Ghannouchi. The sources, who preferred not to be named, revealed in statements to the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper the names of 19 Tunisian terrorists who were arrested inside Syria, saying they had all been recruited under the patronage of the Security Attache at the Qatari Embassy in Tunis, al-Nahda Party and a number of Libyan extremists led by the former head of the Military Council in Tripoli, Abdul Hakim Balhaj. The sources said that among the detainees are terrorists who had participated in armed operations on the Tunisian territories particularly during what was known as Suleiman events in 2007. They highlighted that those terrorists carried out armed acts against the Syrian Army in response to fatwas issued by Takfiri clergymen in Tunisia. H. Said / H. Sabbagh