Tunisian women 'waging sex jihad in Syria'

[Robby999 1,024]

TUNIS (AFP) – Tunisian women have travelled to Syria to wage "sex jihad" by comforting Islamist fighters battling the regime there, Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou has told MPs.

"They have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100" militants, the minister told members of the National Constituent Assembly on Thursday.

"After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of 'jihad al-nikah' -- (sexual holy war, in Arabic) -- they come home pregnant," Ben Jeddou told the MPs.

He 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 hardline Sunni Muslim Salafists as a legitimate form of holy war.

The minister also did not say how many Tunisian women were thought to have gone to Syria for such a purpose, although media reports have said hundreds have done so.

Hundreds of Tunisian men have also gone to join the ranks of the jihadists fighting to bring down the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

However, Ben Jeddou also said that since he assumed office in March, "six thousand of our young people have been prevented from going there" to Syria.

He has said in the past that border controls have been boosted to intercept young Tunisians seeking to travel to Syria.

Media reports say thousands of Tunisians have, over the past 15 years, joined jihadists across the world in Afghanistan Iraq and Syria, mainly travelling via Turkey or Libya.

Abu Iyadh, who leads the country's main Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia, is the suspected organiser of a deadly attack last year on the US embassy in Tunis and an Afghanistan veteran.

He was joint leader of a group responsible for the September 9, 2001 assassination in Afghanistan of anti-Taliban Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud by suicide bombers.

That attack came just two days before the deadly Al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and Pentagon in Washington.

I am starting to think that there is a jihad for just about everything!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I am starting to think that there is a jihad for just about everything!

So if you sign up to be gassed you get to have sex with a Tunisian woman? errrrr.

Can I just go to Kreshatik Street in Kiev instead?

[Darnell 8,479]

I think it's cool these womens have gotten involved.

Relieves the opportunity for the raping of infidels, already allowed in another fatwah.

[slim 1,533]

If Tunisian women and Tunisian men are going, why don't they just cut out the middle man and have sex at home?

[Boiler 46,176]

Is this service just available in Syria?

[X Factor 1,112]

And they condem Western loose morals ~ hypocrisy at its finest

[sandinista! 1,816]

The Sex Jihad story playfully weaves together a history of fatwa misreporting (like the famous faux phallic fatwa), haphazard research and knee-jerk reactions (the Queendom of Saudi Arabia debacle, the Yemeni child bride hoax and the guy too handsome for, again, Saudi Arabia) and a weird, uneasy obsession with Muslims and sex. It especially feeds on the trope of Muslim womens bodies as disposable for the unquenchable appetites of Muslim men. This in turn also obscures the agency of Muslim women in sexual relations as ones to only ever serve males. Michaelson additionally asks:

Why would women coming into Syria prioritise sexual favours when there is a large body of evidence showing that there are female fighters on the ground?

So what then can we make of the Interior Ministers statements? Dismissing them is not an option, yet questioning them certainly is as ultimately we dont have enough details about the story from the source itself, Ben Jeddou, whose information more than likely came from within the intelligence service in his ministry and not (hopefully) from online gossip sites. How did these young girls, some allegedly as young as thirteen, get out of Tunisia, into Syria, out of Syria (pregnant) and back into Tunisia with what seems to be ease? Why are only Tunisian women being sent to wage this sex war? Why not Pakistani? Chechen? Libyan? Who is escorting these women? Or are they traveling alone and if so how and where are they getting across the borders into Syria?

What we do know is that, according to the Tunisian government, at least thirteen Tunisian girls are missing, several hundred Tunisian men have allegedly gone to join Syrian rebels, several thousand have been stopped from going to Syria and we know that sex (especially in terms of sexual violence and exploitation) is an inseparable part of any conflict and war. Yet the near exclusiveness of only Tunisian young girls being groomed for a holy sex war brigade (perhaps unwittingly building on the stereotype of North African women amongst Gulf/Levantine Arabs), the lack of evidence and corroborating reports from journalists, aid workers and activists on the ground in Syria, false fatwas and the history of delegitimizing groups, ideas and movements through accusations (whether these are true or not is irrelevant) of sexual deviance (eg. Here, here and here) call into question how this story is being used by the Tunisian government itself. After all, it has a strong interest in countering the growth of Salafist ideas and sympathies within its own borders.

When it comes to stories that involve Muslims and sex, international news media are quick to publish and gloat about the varying ways in which Muslims (by extension generally any and all brown folks) are so incredibly sexually repressed that they resort to sexual deviance, which is always at the expense of their women. The words Sex and Jihad are two SEO-happy terms that elicit strong emotional responses and outrage as well as clicks and news-makers are well aware of this. Instead of putting in some time to verify information or, at the very least, offer cautionary language most, if not all, American news media reported the Sexual Jihad story as the hard (no pun intended), cold, exploitative truth. As Ive written elsewhere:

Predisposed ideas and conceptions of Muslims and of gender relations in the Muslim world and Muslim countries make it easy for sloppy and reactionary journalism to gain momentum. They love to publish it, and we love to read it. Theres something wrong with this equation, but we still continue to gobble it up every time its thrown in our collectively gawking face.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mmw/2013/09/officials-claim-tunisian-women-are-waging-a-sexual-jihad-in-syria-but-whats-the-real-story/#more-14102

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mmw/2013/09/officials-claim-tunisian-women-are-waging-a-sexual-jihad-in-syria-but-whats-the-real-story/#more-14102