A Jihadist Jailbreak from Tunisia’s Most Secure Prison

In November, five convicted jihadists managed to escape from Mornaguia prison near the Tunisian capital, one of the country’s most secure, complex and closely guarded jails. Their escape caused an outcry on social media, where many demanded to know how the operation could have happened, voiced suspicions that security officials had helped facilitate it, and asked whether it had been an organized smuggling operation or simply a successful, planned escape.

These questions aside, the operation had an immediate impact on domestic politics in Tunisia. This started with the dismissal of 18 security officials from various state agencies including the prison director, the General Director of Specialized Services and the Central Director of Public Information.

The Escape Operation

The escapees did not get far before various security agencies separately apprehended as they headed westwards, indicating that their plan was to reach the Tunisian mountains on the border with Algeria, such as the Shaanbi range.

The five men are accused of being key members of a cell responsible for the assassination of prominent leftist politicians Chokri Belaid on February 6, 2013, and Mohamed Brahmi on July 25, 2013. They were also suspected of planning other assassinations targeting Tunisian government figures in 2014.

It appears likely that escapee Ahmed Al-Maliki - known as “the Somali” as he had been trained in Somalia - was the mastermind of the escape. He had led the planning of the assassination of government and political figures in 2013, supported by others with ideological and doctrinal affiliations with the Tunisian jihadist movement.*

Ideology and Adherence

The escapees were signed up to the ideology of the Ansar al-Sharia movement, which was formed in Tunisia in 2011. While the movement’s founder, Abu Ayadh al-Tunisi (Sayf Allah Bin Hussein) rejected violence in Tunisia, he ended up fighting in Libya.

The movement comprises three generations of Tunisian jihadists, with diverse experiences and ideological outlooks. Some formed their jihadist beliefs in Afghanistan during the early days of Al-Qaeda, while others developed theirs in European countries like France and Spain. Others shaped their jihadist convictions during time spent fighting for the Tawhid and Jihad group formed by Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, which later evolved into the Islamic State (IS). Still others fought in Syria and Iraq, either for IS or for Al-Qaeda / the Al-Nusra Front.

It is important to note that most members of these groups who have been apprehended have found themselves incarcerated together from 2013 until the present day. In many cases, it is also incorrect to describe them as belonging to a specific organization at all. Rather, they should be seen as Tunisia’s new generation of jihadist. This includes the five escapees.

While the Tunisian media paid great attention to the escape, the coverage did little to address the risks of creating “jihadist academies” in prisons, both in Tunisia and elsewhere.

In contrast to the series “Prison Break”, the escapees from the Mornaguia prison did not use maps, nor did they have spoons to dig tunnels leading out of the prison. The operation seems to have been rather simple, only requiring a few pieces of fabric tied together to form a rope to hang from the watchtower, and a file to cut the iron bars of the cell window overlooking the prison yard, which was connected to a passage leading to the watchtower.

So far, so simple. Tunisian President Kais Saied used the incident as a reason to sack various state security officials, as well as claiming that there domestic and foreign collaborators had helped orchestrate the operation.

Regardless of whether the operation had inside help, it raised other questions; notably, the possibility of whether it was connected to the recent escape of four Al-Qaeda leaders from the Mauritanian capital’s tightly guarded central prison on March 5.

The Mauritanian operation was led by Sheikh Ould Salek, who was accompanied by Ishbih Mohamed al-Rasoul. Both are leading figures in Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI). They were also joined by two other young men who had tried to join Al-Qaeda in early 2020.

This was the second time Sheikh Ould Salek, who had driven an explosives-laden car across the Malian border and into Nouakchott in 2011 with the intention of blowing up the presidential palace, had escaped from prison. The first was in 2015, but he was arrested months later in Guinea. At the time of writing, he remains at large.

The Mauritanian and Tunisian operations were similar in several ways. Both took place at high-security prisons, at dawn. No sophisticated tools or complicated plans were used in either. The Mauritanian escapees, however, snatched weapons from officers then shot the guards at the front gate, through which they then escaped. The Tunisian escapees needed to make ropes and had to trek miles through the wilderness before they were able to enter urban areas.

Did Nouakchott inspire Mornaguia?

There is no doubt that jihadist organizations share a number of many methods and behaviors when operating from prison. In fact, prisons often transform into “jihadist academies” where experiences of jihadi thought and action are transmitted from generation to generation of jihadists. It should not be forgotten that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi received training in jihadist ideology at the U.S.-run Camp Bucca prison in Baghdad, from which hundreds of jihadists “graduated” between 2003 and 2009. The prison essentially became an Al-Qaeda academy, where experienced field operators gave theoretical lessons and intensive courses on manufacturing explosives and other operating techniques to the prison’s younger male inmates.

It also bears mentioning that jihadist Anis Al-Omari, the perpetrator of the Berlin jihadist attack in 2016, received his jihadist training in prison in Italy in 2011-2015, after having stolen a car in the Italian city of Belpasso.

As far as the Tunisian escape operation is concerned, it is not implausible that the fugitives had outside help and coordination, in the final stages, as they attempted to reach a jihadist battlefield. They were facing life sentences, and therefore could not remain inside Tunisia. Moreover, jihadist groups have adopted the strategy of “investing” in prison escapees since Al-Zarqawi founded his group in Iraq, and groups such as IS have continued to do so up until the present day. The Tunisian fugitives’ subsequent arrest will not deter other groups and individuals from attempt to escape Tunisian prisons, especially given with the growing clout of jihadist movements in Africa.

The prisoners also included Nader Bin Hasan Bin Mohmamed El-Ghanemi, Alaa El-Dine Abdelrazzaq Yousef El-Ghazwani and Raid Izzedine Al-Az’ar El-Touati, who is accused of killing a policeman in 2014 in the Chaambi Mountains near the Algerian border, and Amer al-Hachimi Bin El-Habib El-Balazi.