Introduction
Since the conclusion of the Arab Spring in late 2012, the North African region has long been subjected to violent attacks carried out by violent extremist groups, particularly in Algeria and Tunisia. In countries like Tunisia and Libya, for instance, the existing fragility has created an enabling environment for extremist groups to penetrate the region.
One should note that Tunisia is one of the countries in North Africa with the highest number of its citizens joining violent extremist organisations. At the same time, the country has experienced a sequence of violent extremist attacks, including the Sousse, Hammamet and National Bardo Museum attacks in 2015, where nineteen people were killed in these attacks alone. On 16 September 2024, an attack carried out by a suspected armed group connected with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed the lives of two shepherds in Western Algeria, as indicated by the Algerian state authority.
North Africa has been considered a landscape for violent extremists, including Al-Qaeda, Daesh, and Katiba (a sub-group of transnational terrorist organisations). The emergence of the Arab Spring and the Algerian Civil War that ended in February 2002, usually referred to as the ‘decade of terrorism,’ marked the beginning and booming era of violent extremist movements that were suppressed by the military. The aftermath of the military repression of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) members witnessed the emergence of Islamist guerrilla groups, including the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). The post-Arab Spring epoch created a formal governance shortfall that triggered the emergence of radical extremist groups. The political instability promoted by the Arab Spring resulted in several ungoverned spaces and enabled extremist expansion. These ungoverned spaces, fuelled by internal conflict, were leveraged by extremists for expansion, and Western powers considered such threats as part of a globalised network of jihadist movements.
Furthermore, many citizens from North African countries have been recruited as foreign fighters to fight in Syria and Iraq. Evidence also shows that a significant number of Tunisia citizens have served as foreign fighters in Syria, with a small fraction coming from Morocco and Egypt. It is believed that two of the deadliest attacks on Tunisia have been carried out by returnee foreign fighters. While the region experienced 4,000 deaths associated with attacks by violent extremists in the 1990s, 276 deaths were connected to jihadist attacks in 2022. Furthermore, Tunisia is considered to have the highest ratio of foreign fighters per capita globally.
This Insight will discuss violent extremism perpetrated by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Islamic State, and the local affiliates. It will further delve into online recruitment strategies used by these groups in Tunisia and Algeria. As presented in Figures 1 and 2, Tunisia and Algeria have recently experienced a sharp decline in violent extremist organisations (VEO) attacks. However, radicalising youth for extremist purposes has continued to serve as a threat to their national security.
Based on the analysis presented in the above figure, between 2022 (3.99 points) and 2023 (2.91 points), there was a drastic reduction in violent extremist attacks in Tunisia. Between 2002 and 2023, an average of 3.69 points is allocated to the terrorism index in the country. However, in 2015 (6.28 points) and (0.92 points) in 2006. Source: Institute for Economics and Peace
Figure 2 reveals the decreasing nature of VEOs’ activities in Algeria. In 2023, Algeria experienced a decrease (2.20 points) in VEOs’ attacks compared to 2022 (4.08 points). Generally, between 2022 and 2023, the average points were estimated as 5.75 points, highlighting 7.23 points in 2002 and experiencing a decline (2.20 points) in 2022. Source: Institute for Economics and Peace
VEOs Online Recruitment Strategies in Tunisia and Algeria
In a generic sense, the North African extremist groups have served as foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) in Syria against the Assad regime, Afghanistan, as well as Iraq. These FTFs were recruited through a well-coordinated network. For instance, in the Tunisian neighbourhood of Douar Hishar, it was estimated that three or four youths were recruited daily. After recruitment, the new cohorts were sent to Syria to support the existing networks. The stipends offered by the parent organisation are estimated at 3,000 USD to travel to Syria. Once they arrived in Syria, they would be asked to join their national cohorts. Even though Tunisia is described as the only country among Arab nations that has triumphed in democratic sustainability, such a big step has been threatened by the increasing recruitment of the young population into violent extremism. Jihad at home and abroad has become a lucrative job for the youthful population.
The material needs of marginalised youth play a fundamental role in the recruitment strategy of the VEOs in Tunisia. Based on individual qualifications, it was estimated that a recruited youth earns between US$400 and US$4,000 a month. In case of death, the family of the deceased fighter are taken care of by the VEOs. The whole package and associated benefits make recruitment more accessible for the VEOs, especially compared to the average salary in Tunisia. Moreover, the recruiters who serve as intermediaries between the VEOs and potential individuals also receive benefits and bonuses based on the number of youths recruited.
Extremists recruit vulnerable targets in Tunisia through two primary channels: direct and indirect. However, due to its technological nexus, I will focus on indirect recruitment. An indirect recruitment approach necessitates using online media campaigns and instruments. Using social media is one of the primary strategies VEOs employ in Tunisia.
In Tunisia, VEOs often rely on these social media channels to promote their ideology and propaganda for recruiting young adults. The young adults whose economic situation is handicapped and those who have been psychologically impacted as a result of ideological doctrines are considered the primary targets of the VEOs in Tunisia. It is crucial to note the rationale behind recruiting youth and children. Most of those recruited through several channels emphasise marginalisation propelled by the Tunisia government. VEOs leverage such neglect resulting from governance failure to create an enabling environment for the youth and children to meet their economic needs.
Figure 3: This image taken from Jihad Intel presented by the Middle East Forum shows how violent extremists weaponised religious doctrines to radicalise the youth population. The image emphasises that the rulers of this age are unbelievers and lack the capacity to preserve religious values.
These new cohorts were also used as a force for media campaigns for new recruitment. For instance, in July 2015, the Islamic State (IS) released a video online that paraded FTFs in Raqqa. The video featured online further demonstrated how FTFs were urging Algerians to join IS in Syria and unleash terror on the Algerian government at home. IS’s social media network creates an empowering environment for extremists to reach wider groups for recruitment. In April 2017, IS were able to penetrate a large number of the youth population in Algeria to indoctrinate them into Jihadist networks.
One of the strategies adopted by IS in Tunisia was the selection of video games and films that appeal to the younger generation. The militant group employed tailored recruitment videos demonstrating Tunisian fighters who were speaking Arabic and holding Tunisian symbols to pass their message to the youth to join the extremist group in Libya, Iraq, and Syria. In most cases, they were encouraged to carry out lone-wolf terrorist attacks domestically. The narratives further depict IS as fair in governance in which social justice prevails. This propaganda is used as a powerful recruitment strategy among the youth.
Conclusion
Violent extremism remains a threat to North African countries, including Tunisia and Algeria, where VEOs leverage similar recruitment strategies through which youth continue to be radicalised. Preventing online recruitment requires both soft and hard approaches. In an environment where VEOs continue to leverage the economic marginalisation of youths, preventing online recruitment and radicalisation transcends merely safeguarding online access. The tech industry should consider empowering the youth by partnering with the governments of Tunisia and Algeria and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), especially regarding how young adults can access legitimate online earnings. In the vulnerable environment, several innovative programmes should be developed to enhance technological capacity building through which the young population could access legitimate earnings with the support of the tech industry, government and NGOs in Tunisia and Algeria.
Although governments have devised several approaches to curb the imminent threats of violent extremism, especially online recruitment in the region, it appears that there is no regional coordination approach to this issue on social media. However, North Africa has followed diverse approaches in dealing with extremism in the region. For instance, following the three deadly attacks coordinated by ISIS in 2015, the Tunisia government pronounced a holistic war on terror that necessitated the promulgation of counterterrorism law in July 2015. The digital approaches include a pledge to collaborate with several social media companies. Censoring online content was also prioritised, as was digital surveillance, which empowers the state to intrude into citizens’ privacy. More attention is being paid to the cyber activities of citizens to track extremist content.
Due to the transnational dimensions of online recruitment in the region, tech companies should collaborate with regional governments on a common agenda. Well-coordinated regional digital surveillance is encouraged, which will be consolidated with effective partnerships between North Africa’s regional institutions and tech companies.
Dr John Sunday Ojo is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University in the Netherlands. Dr Ojo is a research fellow at NATO Veteran Initiative Research Institute based in Washington DC, United States. He also holds a research fellow position at the Institute for Research and Policy Integration in Africa (IRPIA) housed at Northern Illinois University in the United States. He obtained a PhD from the University of Portsmouth in the UK. Dr Ojo is a 2024-2025 GNET Fellow.