Former Gitmo Detainee Arrested, Charged With Being Top ISIS Recruiter
FoxInsider: The same week that President Obama released 15 Guantanamo Bay detainees, a former prisoner was arrested and charged with being a top recruiter for ISIS.
Abu Nassim was arrested in Libya just days after the State Department claimed that very few Gitmo detainees ever return to terror.
Nassim, whose full name is Moez Ben Abdulgader Ben Ahmed Al Fezzani, was reportedly trying to travel to Tunisia, where he is an ISIS commander and most-wanted terrorist.
He was arrested along with approximately 20 other ISIS supporters between the Libyan towns of Rigdaleen and Al-Jmail.
Nassim is considered a top jihadist recruiter in Italy.
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ForeignNewsDesk: Zintani forces loyal to the internationally-recognized Libyan National Army arrested Moez Ben Abdulgader Ben Ahmed Fezzani 47, known by his nom de guerre Abu Nassim, last week as he was trying to flee Sirte, Libya for Tunisia.
A commander of ISIS militants in Libya since 2014, Fezzani had been sought by Tunisian authorities in connection with the March 2015 Bardo Museum attack in Tunis.
Twenty-two people including 17 foreigners were killed in the attack later claimed by the Islamic State.
Fezzani, along with 20 Islamic State operatives, was arrested by a police patrol while travelling between the towns of Rigdaleen and Al-Jmail.
News of his purported arrest comes just days after Libyan authorities warned their Italian counterparts about the possibility of an Islamic State cell in Milan with connections to the wanted militant.
Following the capture of ISIS’ headquarters in Sirte last week, officials discovered a cache of documents linking the Italian cell to Fezzani.
Fezzani, who arrived in Italy in the late 80’s, disappeared in 1997 after authorities suspected him of involvement in jihadi activities, later resurfacing in Pakistan before joining Osama Bin Laden’s war in Afghanistan.
Arrested by the U.S. in 2001, Fezzani was held at Bagram’s detention facility before the Obama administration approved his transfer to Italy in 2009.
Fezzani stood trial in Italy for his earlier terror offenses, cooperating in terror activities in Bosnia in 1995, but was acquitted.
Upon appeal, he was sentenced to six years in jail, but by this time had already fled; first to Tunisia where he joined Al Qaeda’s Ansar Al Sharia and then to Syria joining the terror group’s Al Nusra affiliate.
In 2014, he transferred allegiances to ISIS’ Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, before moving to Libya where he was reportedly appointed a leader of Katibat al-Battar, described as ISIS’ special operations unit in the volatile country.
“If the information on Fezzani proves to be true, it is very disturbing. Just like the head of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, this was a man we had in our detention facility and let go,” terrorism analyst Dr. Sebastian Gorka told The Investigative Project on Terror in March about Fezzani’s ISIS appointment.
There has been no confirmation of his arrest from Tunisian authorities, but Fezzani’s capture comes just days after the Obama administration announced its biggest release of Guantanamo Bay detainees as the President attempts to fulfil his pledge to close the detention camp.
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The Tunisian Ministry of Interior issued a search warrant on Monday February 8, 2016 for Moez Ben Abdelkader Ben Ahmed Fezzani also known as ‘Abu Nassim’ born 23/03/1969, son of Fatma Chihaoui, from Ezzahrouni, Tunis. The Ministry of Interior classified Moez Fezzani as a dangerous terrorist in its statement:
في إطار تعاون المواطنين مع الوحدات الأمنية بوزارة الداخلية وتوقيا من الأعمال الإرهابيّة، تطلب وزارة الدّاخلية الإبلاغ ال…
Location of the Ezzahrouni neighborhood in Tunis
An older picture of Fezzani
Photo provided by the Ministry of Interior of Tunisia in the search warrant for Fezzani
Moez Fezzani’s has a long history within the sphere of global terrorism that stretches back to both the Bosnian war and the war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, jailed for 7 years at the ‘Baghram Prison’. Fezzani’s journey brings him to Italy where he’s is tried together with another Tunisian and former Guantanamo prisoner Riadh Nasri for providing logistical support in 2007 to a terrorist cell in Italy linked to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which evolved into Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. He was acquitted from charges of terrorism in 2011, but Tunisian authorities demanded his deportation, although Italian autorities already considered him a security threat. The first time his deportation was supposed to be carried out he managed to escape and went into hiding in Varese, Lombardy, to be cought once again and deported to Tunisia.
Fezzani joined Ansar al-Sharia Tunisia (AST) in 2012 and was reportedly active in various confrontations, in 2013 Fezzani left for Syria where he joined Jabhat al-Nusra and later ISIS. He reportedly moved to Libya in 2014 as a leader for Katibat al-Battar and according to sources he now holds a key role in Sirte. Fezzani is suspected for being the mastermind and supervisor of the planning processes behind the high-profile attacks against the Bardo Museum and Sousse.
The search warrant for Fezzani by the Ministry of Interior comes at a critical time when Libya facing the threat of foreign intervention, an intervention which will have significant consequences for Tunisia. We can not exclude that the MOI tacticly issued this warrant to raise public awareness facing both the terrorist threat and additional consequences linked to an eventual Libya intervention, we can also assume that MOI on purpose issued this warrant knowing Fezzani is in Libya, thus framing him as a high-profile target for the international coalition.
