The testimony of Karim Abdel Salam, the mastermind of the Bab Souika operation and one of the leaders of the Tunisian Ennahda’s youth, revealed the involvement of current leaders in the party in violence dating back to 1991.
The operation resulted in the burning of the guards at the headquarters of the ruling Democratic Constitutional Assembly and the execution of three young men from Ennahda.
Abdel Salam said that the operation “was plotted by the leaders of the movement, and executed by its youth.”
He accused current leaders of the Ennahda movement of planning and masterminding the terrorist operation in an open confrontation with the ousted regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Moreover, he noted that the Bab Souika operation was deliberate and most of the movement’s leaders were aware of its details.
He also revealed an “extraordinary plot” at the time to resist the Ben Ali regime. It was developed by Abdel Hamid Al-Jalasi, a prominent member of Ennahda, in cooperation with Habib Al-Lawz, Abdel-Karim Harouni and Al-Ajami Al-Warimayn, all of whom are current leaders in the movement.
The plot was aimed at collecting weapons and preparing groups to target the headquarters of the dissolved Tagammu Party and to burn the premises of educational institutions.
Abdel Salam, who presented the testimony through Radio Shems FM, said that Rached Ghannouchi, the head of Ennahda movement, led a campaign at the time to mobilize the party’s supporters, adding that the movement had manufactured weapons locally at the beginning of the 1990s in preparation for an open confrontation with the Ben Ali regime.
In his response to the accusations, Ghannouchi said Abdel Salam’s testimony “is nothing but a miserable and desperate attempt to transform a political movement ... which is the largest in the country, into a security story, by trying to link it to terrorism.”
A group of left-wing parties had on several occasions accused the Ennahda of running an illegal security apparatus, being behind political assassinations after 2011 and carrying out suspicions activity within the Ministry of Interior.
