Amor Sliti (Jihadi Militant, Belgium)

• Full name: Amor Ben Mohammed Sliti
• Pseudonym: N/a
• Alternatives: N/a
• Location: Syria, fmr Belgium, fmr Afghanistan
• Affiliation: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh], fmr al-Qa’ida, fmr Nizar Trabelsi Module [NTM], fmr Tunisian Combat Group [GCT]

Amor Sliti (°1959) is an Algerian-born Tunisian Islamist militant who came to Belgium in 1976. He married a Flemish woman, but had difficulty adapting to his new environment and drank heavily.¹ Sliti ran an auto repair shop in the Molenbeek suburb of Brussels and eventually gained Belgian citizenship.² In the mid-1990s, he became increasingly devout. Sliti got acquainted with Tarek Maâroufi who introduced him to radical Salafism.³ He made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1995.⁴ Sliti later met with Jordanian al-Qa’ida-linked scholar Omar Othman [aka Abu Qatada] in London and came into contact with Tunisian jihadi leader Seifallah Ben Hassine [aka Abu Iyadh].⁵

In October 1999, Sliti traveled to Afghanistan with his wife and five children. He settled in Jalalabad and linked up with al-Qa’ida.⁶ Sliti was reportedly involved in preparations for the assassination of Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Massoud.⁷ He provided false identification papers to the Belgian-based Tunisian suicide terrorists who carried out the attack.⁸ Sliti also served as a facilitator for European-based Tunisian jihadis traveling to Afghanistan.⁹ He married off his daughter to one of these fighters. She became a mother at fourteen years.¹⁰ Sliti occasionally traveled between Afghanistan and Europe where he reportedly assisted the Nizar Trabelsi Module [NTM] with planning an attack on a military base in Belgium.¹¹

After the American military offensive against the Taliban began in late 2001, Sliti fled Afghanistan. In February 2002, Iranian border guards apprehended him after he had sneaked into the country from Pakistan.¹² Sliti was subsequently extradited to the Netherlands where he was placed under arrest upon arrival.¹³ The Dutch authorities handed him over to Belgium on Mar. 01, 2002.¹⁴

In 2003, the Belgian authorities put Sliti on trial as an accomplice in the trial against NTM operatives.¹⁵ On Sep. 30, a court sentenced him to five years in prison.¹⁶ After serving his term, he was released and kept a low profile for several years. In December 2010, Sliti was stripped of his Belgian citizenship.¹⁷

Sliti became an enthusiastic supporter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham] in 2014. In December of that year, he traveled to Syria to join the organization.¹⁸ Sliti settled in Raqqa and worked for the DaIISh’s taxation department.¹⁹ His daughter claimed that he was killed by members of the group in March 2017.²⁰ This information is uncorroborated and Sliti’s current status is unknown.