<p>Tunisian women have travelled to Syria to wage "sex jihad" by comforting Islamist fighters battling the regime there, Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou has told MPs.<br /><br /></p>.<p>"They have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100" militants, the minister told members of the National Constituent Assembly yesterday.<br /><br />"After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of 'jihad al-nikah' -- (sexual holy war, in Arabic) -- they come home pregnant," Ben Jeddou told the MPs.<br /><br />He did not elaborate on how many Tunisian women had returned to the country pregnant with the children of jihadist fighters.<br /><br />Jihad al-nikah, permitting extramarital sexual relations with multiple partners, is considered by some hardline Sunni Muslim Salafists as a legitimate form of holy war.<br /><br />The minister also did not say how many Tunisian women were thought to have gone to Syria for such a purpose, although media reports have said hundreds have done so.<br /><br />Hundreds of Tunisian men have also gone to join the ranks of the jihadists fighting to bring down the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.<br /><br />However, Ben Jeddou also said that since he assumed office in March, "six thousand of our young people have been prevented from going there" to Syria.<br /><br />He has said in the past that border controls have been boosted to intercept young Tunisians seeking to travel to Syria.<br /><br />Media reports say thousands of Tunisians have, over the past 15 years, joined jihadists across the world in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, mainly travelling via Turkey or Libya.<br /><br />Abu Iyadh, who leads the country's main Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia, is the suspected organiser of a deadly attack last year on the US embassy in Tunis and an Afghanistan veteran.<br /><br />He was joint leader of a group responsible for the September 9, 2001 assassination in Afghanistan of anti-Taliban Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud by suicide bombers.<br /><br />That attack came just two days before the deadly al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and Pentagon in Washington.</p>
<p>Tunisian women have travelled to Syria to wage "sex jihad" by comforting Islamist fighters battling the regime there, Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou has told MPs.<br /><br /></p>.<p>"They have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100" militants, the minister told members of the National Constituent Assembly yesterday.<br /><br />"After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of 'jihad al-nikah' -- (sexual holy war, in Arabic) -- they come home pregnant," Ben Jeddou told the MPs.<br /><br />He did not elaborate on how many Tunisian women had returned to the country pregnant with the children of jihadist fighters.<br /><br />Jihad al-nikah, permitting extramarital sexual relations with multiple partners, is considered by some hardline Sunni Muslim Salafists as a legitimate form of holy war.<br /><br />The minister also did not say how many Tunisian women were thought to have gone to Syria for such a purpose, although media reports have said hundreds have done so.<br /><br />Hundreds of Tunisian men have also gone to join the ranks of the jihadists fighting to bring down the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.<br /><br />However, Ben Jeddou also said that since he assumed office in March, "six thousand of our young people have been prevented from going there" to Syria.<br /><br />He has said in the past that border controls have been boosted to intercept young Tunisians seeking to travel to Syria.<br /><br />Media reports say thousands of Tunisians have, over the past 15 years, joined jihadists across the world in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, mainly travelling via Turkey or Libya.<br /><br />Abu Iyadh, who leads the country's main Salafist movement Ansar al-Sharia, is the suspected organiser of a deadly attack last year on the US embassy in Tunis and an Afghanistan veteran.<br /><br />He was joint leader of a group responsible for the September 9, 2001 assassination in Afghanistan of anti-Taliban Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud by suicide bombers.<br /><br />That attack came just two days before the deadly al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and Pentagon in Washington.</p>