They Always Come Back: A Look at the Ben Khemais Network in Milan

Introduction

The militant jihadist scene in Milan and various other Italian cities in the 1990s and 2000s has always been of interest to me, particularly after reading Evan Kohlmann’s Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, and discovering Anwar Shabaan and the Islamic Cultural Center (aka the viale Jenner mosque) of Milan’s efforts on the Bosnian front with Odred El Mudžahid and NGOs in Zagreb supplying them.  Then I found Lorenzo Vidino’s Al Qaeda in Europe, which I think is easily the best book on the Italian networks, and also Peter Nesser’s Islamist Terrorism in Europe: A History.  I still regularly consult these three books when doing research, and they become more meaningful the more I learn over time.  But the subject of the early Italian networks linked to al Qaeda and North African terrorist groups like the GIA/GSPC and MICG/Salafia Jihadia has continued to sit largely on the backburner so far as my own writing goes.  Recently I was reading Aaron Zelin’s fantastic article “Tunisian Foreign Fighters in Iraq and Syria,” (and now his excellent book Your Sons Are At Your Service) and a small sentence in the beginning of the article reignited my interest.  He mentioned the arrival of a small group of fighters at Zarqawi’s Kurdish base in the Fall of 2002—3 Iraqis and 8 Tunisians, all from Marseille*.  Sad to say, I couldn’t dig up who these guys were, but I was quickly re-introduced to the largely Tunisian networks operating in the south of Europe during those days and my attention was quickly diverted.  The source for his statement was Vidino’s book.