Tunisia condemns youths joining Syrian rebels

Adnan Monser, the spokesman for the Tunisian President, expressed his dissatisfaction with calls by a number of Tunisian  imams, urging the Tunisian youth to travel to Syria for the sake of  jihad (Islamic fighting), stressing :" the president asks these imams to stop their calls due to fear of punishment by God, as well as stop encouraging the over-exciting youth to make imprudent actions". Monser added: "We should help the Syrian people by political solutions, not by fatwas (Islamic religious decrees issued by scholars)". An official at the ministry of religious affairs in Tunisia has clarified that imams in mosques are not under the control of the ministry and are inciting Tunisian religious youths for "Jihad", especially in Syria pointing out: "The ministry is working to resolve this problem and it does not adopt the concept of jihad because Tunisia is in a state of peace”. This "discontent" coincides with the announcement of Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali in which he stated that his government is not responsible for the young Tunisians who travel to Syria to fight alongside the armed opposition in its battle against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. Jebali, said in an interview with one of the international news agencies that: "young Tunisians who fight outside their country are not a recent phenomenon and do not belong only to Tunisia,” adding:" Tunisian youths had fought before in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. We do not send them but they go on their own, and this happens in many other countries as well". The official Syrian television station has broadcasted in May confessions of a number of arrested men, saying they are Tunisian terrorists who crossed into Syria through Turkey. Those "confessions" were released few days after the announcement of Bashar Jaafari, permanent ambassador of Syria to the United Nations, of the presence of foreign terrorists in Syria. He stressed that the Syrian government possess recorded confessions by 26 terrorists (mostly Tunisians) and that some of them belong to al-Qaeda. In context of these events in Syria, Tunisia renewed its rejection of military intervention in Syria. The spokesman for the Tunisian presidency said: “Tunisia‘s initial position is a rejection of foreign military intervention in Syria. Tunisia supports the Arab League initiative, which considers the Yemeni solution as the most effective way to resolve the crisis in Syria. He explained: "foreign intervention will not achieve the aspirations of the Syrian people and would blow up the region and lead to the division of Syria and ignite a civil war”.