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(Bloomberg) — It took just weeks of brutal fighting for Ahmed to realize that his journey from a working-class home in Tunisia’s capital to the battlefields of Syria had been a mistake.

Radicalized at an unofficial Tunis mosque, Ahmed, then 24 years old, was helped into Syria by militants he met on social media. With their assistance he slipped across frontiers in early 2013 on his way to jihadist-run villages. He says he expected to be defending Muslims caught up in civil war, and instead found himself among their oppressors.

“I saw with my own eyes how armed groups like Ahrar al-Sham and Al-Nusra Front kill and terrorize civilians, especially women and children, without reason, just to intimidate residents and control cities,” Ahmed said. He asked for his real name to be withheld and replied to questions posed through his lawyer.

“Anyone who rejects orders or tries to quit is killed. Getting out of Syria alive was like being reborn.”

Back in Tunis, where he keeps a low profile to escape police searches, Ahmed is at the center of a debate over how to deal with returning fighters — one that may soon echo all over Europe with as many as 30,000 foreigners having traveled to Syria and Iraq. It pits activists calling for greater emphasis on rehabilitation against politicians who fear being seen as soft on terrorism.

Rare Success

Assaults on tourists and security forces have shattered Tunisia’s image as the Arab Spring nation that avoided spiraling violence and held successful elections — a transition rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. Compounding the problem are the estimated 3,000 Tunisians who’ve traveled to war zones to fight.

The government has imposed a state of emergency and is fencing part of its border with Libya, where intelligence agencies say attacks on a Tunis museum and a beach resort were planned. That won’t be enough, say proponents of a draft law that would offer a future to men like Ahmed.

“You can’t fight terrorism with violence, imprisonment and insult,” said Mohammad Iqbal Ben Rajab, president of the Rescue Association of the Tunisian Stranded Abroad. “Without a clear strategy, most of the returnees will turn into time bombs and sleeper cells.”

Politicians are still fighting over an amnesty plan drafted last year but that hasn’t been presented to parliament. Ridha Sfar, minister in charge of security at the Interior Ministry until last February, says the Forgiveness and Repentance Law would allow returnees whose hands aren’t “stained with blood” to receive reduced prison terms providing they join reintegration programs.

‘Same Mistakes’

“A lot of young Tunisians brainwashed by the Da’esh media machine, with the promise of money, women and weapons, regret what they did,” said Samir Ben Amor, a former presidential adviser who’s also Ahmed’s lawyer, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State, the biggest jihadist group in Syria. “A distinction must be made between those who represent a danger to the state and those who don’t.”

Opponents of the amnesty say it risks repeating mistakes Tunisia made a few years ago.
“These people who say they’re repentant are first and foremost the enemy” —Foreign Minister Taieb Baccouche

Following the 2011 uprising that ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, jailed Islamists were pardoned, including including radicals seeking to impose their interpretation of Islam in one of the Arab world’s most secular states. 

Among them was Seifallah Ben Hassine who used his liberty to found the Ansar al-Shariah group. Ansar was early on linked to attacks on artists, teachers and journalists but the moderate Islamist Ennhadha-led government didn’t react until a mob stormed the U.S. embassy in 2012. The assassination of two secular opposition leaders triggered a harsher clampdown a year later. Ansar was outlawed but a militant network had been established.

“These people who say they’re repentant are first and foremost the enemy, and they must be considered as war prisoners who surrendered,” said Foreign Minister Taieb Baccouche. “We can’t wipe the slate clean under the pretext that they simply lost their way for the sake of peace. We can’t repeat the error of February 2011.”

Syria Road

Born in 1989 in a northern suburb of Tunis, Ahmed dropped out of school to join a vocational training center, qualifying as a mechanic and playing soccer in his spare time. After Ben Ali’s fall, he attended one of the mosques that sprang up outside of government oversight. The sermons he heard set him on the path to Syria.

He crossed from Turkey in February 2013 and began three weeks of combat training with Ahrar al-Sham, one of dozens of groups battling President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and, quite often, each other. He was fed, housed, and promised four wives and a monthly wage of 10,000 Syrian pounds ($45).

Ahmed joined a unit protecting fighters as they attacked Assad’s troops near Aleppo. He soon began to question his decisions.

“I was faced with two choices, either to stay in Syria and fight to the death or return to Tunisia and take the consequences,” he said.

About 1,200 Tunisian fighters have come home, double the official estimate, Ben Rajab said. They include his brother, Hamza. The rescue association helps about 150 families.

“Many returnees have expressed remorse and what proves their sincerity are their voluntary confessions and efforts to regain the trust of families,” he said.

Ahmed’s Escape

Tunisia is yet to build a rehabilitation program but there’s no shortage of models. After 9/11, centers opened in many countries where extremism had taken root, from Denmark to Saudi Arabia. The most effective assess whether radicalization can be reversed, and offer post-release care.

“We’ll never know if someone is truly repentant and some may return to jihad,” said Dalia Ghanem-Yazbeck, a political scientist at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “But even if we save a few of them, it will still be less for Da’esh. And who knows what positive effect this might have on society, if we give them a second chance.”

Tunisia says it’s trying to tackle income inequalities fueling extremism. The Ministry of Religious Affairs also now oversees most mosques, and tougher border checks have prevented 12,500 people joining militant groups, according to the government. More than 90 are under house arrest, said Walid Louguini, an Interior Ministry spokesman.

Ahmed was escorted to a village on the Turkish border in July 2013 after convincing Ahrar leaders he planned to collect money and return to Syria. Instead, he entered a mosque, left through the back-door and made his way to Izmir in Turkey and then home. He now finds occasional work but spends most of his time indoors alone, fearing arrest as Tunisia discusses how to deal with its jihadist threat.

“A first step would be to understand how this country, considered the happy child of the Arab Spring, arrived at this point, how the youth are being radicalized,” said Ghanem- Yazbeck. “If we don’t understand that, we don’t understand the problem.”

To contact the authors of this story: Jihen Laghmari inCairo at jlaghmari@bloomberg.net Caroline Alexander inLondon at calexander1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net Mark Williams at mwilliams108@bloomberg.net Ben Holland at bholland1@bloomberg.net