Hossam Al-Abdali, 28, was an ordinary young man who liked to hang out in cafes and enjoyed the occasional drink. He was so fond of football that his peers called him Perrotta after the Italian football player Simone Perrotta.
Today, Hossam is better known as corpse No. 13. His body lay unidentified for two days after it was blown to pieces by the suicide vest he was wearing when he stepped on a presidential security bus in Tunis on November 25, killing 12 others along with himself.
What happened to the nice guy?
Hossam Al-Abdali, 28, was an ordinary young man who liked to hang out in cafes and enjoyed the occasional drink. He was so fond of football that his peers called him Perrotta after the Italian football player Simone Perrotta.
Today, Hossam is better known as corpse No. 13. His body lay unidentified for two days after it was blown to pieces by the suicide vest he was wearing when he stepped on a presidential security bus in Tunis on November 25, killing 12 others along with himself.
What happened to the nice guy?
Hossam didn’t stand out from other young men in his neighborhood in Mnihla, a slum close to the capital. Neighbors said they had never heard Hossam mention anything about religion. He came from a modes family – his father was a gardener and his mother a homemaker.
He wore fashionable sports clothes and he often could be heard singing the songs of his favorite team, African Club, which he learned by heart.
He dropped out of high school early to join vocational school, and then worked in a bakery until shortly before his death.
After quitting his job as a baker, Hossam became introverted and isolated himself, according to neighbors.
Hossam was enticed by Ansar al-Sharia group to Al-Gufran Republic Neighborhood Mosque in his area by the end of 2012, according to neighbors. There he became active in the radical Salafi stream and frequently attended sermons about jihad in Syria.
Hossam’s financial situation increasingly deteriorated, so he became a street vendor, selling Almonds Harissa, a popular sweet, and ‘al-Hindi’ or (prickly pear).
Meanwhile, Hossam began accusing his relatives of blasphemy. A relative working with Tunisian Army, filed a complaint against Hossam to the security department after Hossam called him a juggernaut, accused of him blasphemy and violating of Sharia.
Not even Hossam’s parents escaped his accusations – they too were told by their son that they were blasphemous. He even told his mother to don a niqab.
Upon intelligence information on his belonging to Ansar al-Sharia, Tunisian Security arrested him and found religious books in his house. He was later released.
Released too soon
On the morning of November 25, Hossam attended morning prayers in the Republic Mosque, returned to his parents’ house and left with a backpack.
Hossam told his mother that the backpack was full of old clothes that no longer fit to him and he was planning to donate them.
Hossam then went to a cafe for a cup of coffee then headed to Mohammed V Street.
Corpse No. 13’s story is still incomplete. His family members refuse to talk and some of them have been detained by security, including his parents and sister.
Unsolved mystery
Tunisian youth are believed to be at the top of the list of foreign fighters in Iraq, Syria and Libya, which has alarmed security experts in Tunisia.
“Restricting religious freedom before the revolution limited the religious culture and extremism of youngsters,” says Abdul Latif Hermassi, a sociologist who considers that socio-economic conditions and frustration are the main factors contributing to Salafi jihadism.
“After the revolution, youngsters were aspiring to have better lives, but instead their conditions worsened, leaving them frustrated and vulnerable to extremist groups,” says Abdul Latif who does not believe that terrorism can be defeated merely by security measures. “It necessitates the elimination of all factors that contributed to proliferation of the phenomenon in Tunisian society,” he said.
