Seifallah Ben Omar Ben Mohamed Ben Hassine (), known as Abu Ayyad al-Tunisi (), was a Tunisian Islamic militant and the founder and leader of

Ansar al-Sharia (Tunisia) Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia () was a Salafi Jihadist group that operates in Tunisia. In 2013, the group was estimated to have roughly 10,000 members. It has been listed as a terrorist group by the Tunisian government, Iraq, the United Nations ...

History

He was born 8 November 1965 in

Menzel Bourguiba Menzel Bourguiba (), formerly known as Ferryville, is a town located in the extreme north of Tunisia, about from Tunis, in the Bizerte Governorate. Toponymy The town's name translates as "House of Bourguiba", as it was named after the first ...

in northern

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

. He became involved in 1980 with the 'Movement of Islamic Tendency' which later became the

Ennahda Movement The Ennahda Movement (; ), also known as the Renaissance Party or simply known as Ennahda, is a self-defined Islamic democratic political party in Tunisia. Founded as the Movement of Islamic Tendency in 1981, Ennahda was inspired by the Egypti ...

. He was a senior leader in the

Tunisian Islamic Front According to United States, American counter-terrorism analysts the Tunisian Islamic Front is a group with ties to terrorism. History According to the Journal of the Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs, the Tunisian Islamic Group was f ...

, the armed wing of the party, by 1986. He was in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

with

Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al Baz (; 21 November 1912 – 13 May 1999), known as Ibn Baz or Bin Baz, was a Saudi Islamic scholar who served as the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1993 until his death in 1999. According to French political scientis ...

and may have had interaction with the

Armed Islamic Group of Algeria The Armed Islamic Group (GIA, from ; ) was one of the two main Islamist insurgent groups that fought the Algerian government and army in the Algerian Civil War. It was created from smaller armed groups following the 1992 military coup and arr ...

and the

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), also known as ''Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya'' (), was an armed Islamist group. Militants participated in the 2011 Libyan Civil War as the Libyan Islamic Movement (''al-Harakat al-Islami ...

. He fled Tunisia following a crackdown by the regime of

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisian Arabic: , ; 3 September 1936 – 19 September 2019), commonly known as Ben Ali or Ezzine, was a Tunisian politician who served as the second President of Tunisia from 1987 to 2011. In that year, during the Tun ...

against the student movements in 1987. He was sentenced in absentia by the Tunis military court to two years in prison for his participation in the events. He first moved to

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

where he studied in the Faculty of Legal Sciences at the Mohammed I University. It was at this time he married. He later went to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in the 1990s and studied under the

al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

cleric

Abu Qatada Abu Qatada () may refer to: * Abu Qatada al-Ansari (584–658/660), knight of the Rashidun Caliphate * Abu Qatada al-Filistini (born 1959), Palestinian Islamic cleric {{disambiguation ...

. He then fought alongside

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

and in 2000 was the co-founder of a group of Tunisian militants known as the

Tunisian Combat Group The Tunisian Combatant Group (, ''Jama’a Combattante Tunisienne''; ) or TCG was a loose network of terrorists with connections to Al-Qaeda that was founded in 2000 and aspired to install an Islamist government in Tunisia. According to the Unit ...

. He ran a guesthouse for Tunisians in

Jalalabad Jalalabad (; Help:IPA/Persian, ͡ʒä.lɑː.lɑː.bɑːd̪ is the list of cities in Afghanistan, fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 200,331, and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part ...

and the men who stayed there were connected to

. He provided the two Tunisian men who killed

Ahmad Shah Massoud Ahmad Shāh Massoud (2 September 19539 September 2001) was an Afghan militant leader and politician. He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 19 ...

, leader of the

Northern Alliance The Northern Alliance ( ''Da Šumāl E'tilāf'' or ''Ettehād Šumāl''), officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( ''Jabha-ye Muttahid-e barāye Afğānistān''), was a military alliance of groups that op ...

. Ahmad Shah Massoud was killed by the two men, suicide bombers posing as journalists, two days before the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. He was arrested in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

in February 2003, he was extradited to

. A military court sentenced him to 43 years in prison. After the Tunisian Revolution which overthrew

, he was released from prison in March 2011 under an amnesty and founded

in late April 2011. Ben Hassine personally led the storming of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Embassy in

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

on September 14, 2012. In 2012, while he was still on the run after the US embassy attack, he goaded police by preaching in a mosque in central Tunis. Despite the presence of a large number of security forces, a crowd of his supporters hid him and helped him evade the police cordon. He was based in

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

since 2013 and ran training camps and a network of militant cells across the region.

Reports of death

In July 2015. an anonymous U.S. intelligence official told ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' that Ben Hassine was believed to have been killed near

Ajdabiya Ajdabiya ( ; ) is a town in and capital of the Al Wahat District in northeastern Libya. It is some south of Benghazi. From 2001 to 2007 it was part of and capital of the Ajdabiya District. The town is divided into three Basic People's Congres ...

in eastern

on June 14, 2015, in an American airstrike intended to target

Mokhtar Belmokhtar Mokhtar Belmokhtar (; ;pronounced in Algerian Arabic as 1 June 1972 – November 2016), also known as Khalid Abu al-Abbas, the One-Eyed, Nelson, and the Uncatchable, was an Algerian leader of the group Al-Murabitoun, former military commander ...

Family

He was married to a Moroccan woman and had three children.

Death

In February 2020,

al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (, ), or AQIM, is an Islamist militant organization (of al-Qaeda) that aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state. To that end, it was then engaged in an insurgency ...

leader

Abdelmalek Droukdel Abdelmalek Droukdel (; 20 April 1970 – 3 June 2020), also known by his alias as Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud (), was the emir, or leader, of the Algerian Islamic militant group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), formerly the Salafist Group f ...

announced Ben Hassine's death but did not say when he died.

References

{{Reflist People from Bizerte Governorate Tunisian Islamists Leaders of jihadist groups Mohammed First University alumni 1965 births 2020 deaths