Tunisia Salafist leader: Group cannot be defeated

The fugitive leader of Ansar al-Sharia, the radical Islamist group in Tunisia, said his supporters cannot be defeated despite their "persecution," in a recording posted online late Sunday after bloody clashes with police. In the five-minute message, apparently taped before Sunday's violence in which one protester was killed and at least 15 police wounded, Abu Iyadh addresses the annual congress of his Salafist movement that the authorities banned on security grounds. "God knows well that I would like to have been with you at the moment when you opened a shining page in the history of our nation. You have shown the entire world that your efforts cannot be defeated despite the persecution of your leaders," he said. The audio recording by Ansar al-Sharia's leader, a former Al-Qaeda fighter in Afghanistan whose real name is Saif Allah Bin Hussein, was posted on the group's Facebook page. Abu Iyadh has been on the run since September, after an attack by Islamist protesters on the US embassy in Tunis, which he is accused of orchestrating and which left four assailants dead. The Salafists' third annual congress was to be held on Sunday in the holy city of Kairouan. But the government banned the gathering, saying it threatened public order, and deployed a heavy security contingent in Kairouan, prompting Ansar al-Sharia to move its meeting to the Tunis suburb of Ettadhamen, where the fighting erupted. Eannahda, Tunisia's moderate ruling Islamist party, has been strongly criticised for being too lenient towards the Salafist group, which is considered close to Al-Qaeda. But it has hardened its stance since early May, faced with the threat of two armed jihadist groups being hunted along the Algerian border. Abu Iyadh sarcastically thanked the Tunisian authorities for helping the Salafists. "Our religion has taught us to thank the deserving, and you tyrants are the best placed to be thanked as you have committed so many stupidities which have allowed us to spread our teaching without needing publicity." Salafists advocate an ultra-conservative brand of Sunni Islam. Ansar al-Sharia is considered the most radical of the extremist groups that have emerged in Tunisia since the January 2011 revolution, and which are blamed for a wave of attacks across the country.