Tunisians Are Shaken as Young Women Turn to Extremism
TUNIS — Leila Mustapha Saidi returned home on a recent day to find her daughter Henda missing, along with her computer. Mrs. Saidi, who had watched her daughter grow religious and “obsessed” with the conflict in Syria , said she feared she had run off to join Islamist fighters there. Instead, the police called four days later. Her daughter Henda Saidi was holed up in a house outside Tunis with a group of suspected insurgents. A day later, security forces stormed the house. Of six people killed in the raid, five were young women. “They classified her as a terrorist,” Mrs. Saidi said bitterly. After more than two years of mounting attacks and assassinations, Tunisians are no longer surprised by shootouts between gunmen and anti-terrorist units, even in the capital. But the standoff in which Ms. Saidi was killed nonetheless shocked many here for the sheer number of women involved. Ms. Saidi, in a photo provided by her family. It has also driven home the fact that — nearly four years afte