And a Tunisian activist says that more Tunisian girls are involved than has been reported: “It’s a complete network and the Interior Ministry is not being transparent on this issue.”
“Few Tunisian women waging sex jihad: official,” from Agence France Presse, October 7:
TUNIS: The number of Tunisian women traveling to Syria to wage “sex jihad” by comforting Islamists fighting the regime is very low, a senior Interior Ministry official told AFP Sunday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, seemed to play down previous statements that suggested “sex jihad” was more widespread.
“At most about 15 Tunisian women went to Syria, most to care for fighters or to do social work,” the official said.
But some of them were forced to have sexual relations with Islamist fighters once they were in the country, the official said.
“Four of them came back from Syria, and one is pregnant,” he added.
“The pregnant woman said that she was caring for fighters and had to have sexual relations with them.”
The official said, however, that women from Chechnya, Egypt, Iraq, France and Germany had traveled to Syria for “sex jihad.”
“They were targeted for indoctrination over the Internet and by foreign sheikhs,” he added, referring to information obtained from Tunisian women returning from Syria.
Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou told the National Constituent Assembly last month that Tunisian women had gone to Syria where “they have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100” militants.
“After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of “˜jihad al-nikah” — they come home pregnant,” ben Jeddou said at the time.
Ben Jeddou did not elaborate on how many Tunisian women had returned to the country pregnant with the children of jihadist fighters.
Jihad al-nikah, permitting extramarital sexual relations with multiple partners, is considered by some hard-line Sunni Salafists as a legitimate form of holy war.
Meanwhile the head of the relief association for Tunisians abroad, Badis Koubakji, said “dozens of Tunisian women have come back” from Syria after engaging in jihad al-nikah there and that “hundreds” were still there.
Koubakji said there was a camp for the women in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib.
“It’s a complete network and the Interior Ministry is not being transparent on this issue,” he said Sunday.
Koubakji said that these young women aged between 17 and 30 would not talk about their experiences because their families wanted to “preserve their honor.”…