Mohammed Midani (Jihadi Militant, Tunisia)

• Full name: Mohammed Fathi Midani el-Haji
• Pseudonym: N/a
• Alternatives: N/a
• Location: N/a
• Affiliation: Soldiers of the Caliphate in Tunisia [JaKI], formerly Brigade of Uqba Bin Nafa’a [KUIN]

Mohammed Midani (°1987) was a jihadi from Tunisia’s Kasserine governorate. He reportedly helped set up the Brigade of Uqba Bin Nafa’a [KUIN; Katibat Uqba Ibn Nafaâ] in late 2012 and acted as one of its most senior commanders.¹ In that capacity, Midani was linked to many of the outfit’s most notorious attacks. He is said to have participated in the July 2013 killing of eight soldiers in an ambush on Mount Chaâmbi, the May 2014 attack on the home of the Tunisian interior minister in Kasserine and the July 2014 attack on a military position on Mount Chaâmbi in which fourteen troops were killed.² In November 2014, the authorities put him on the list of Tunisia’s most wanted terrorists.³

Midani quit the KUIN following the death of its top commander, Khalid Chaïeb, in March 2015. He switched allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham] and joined the Soldiers of the Caliphate in Tunisia [JaKI; Jund al-Khilafa fi-Ifriqiya].⁴ Midani was later blamed for the brutal beheading of a young shepherd in Sidi Bouzid’s Jelma area in November 2015.⁵ Tunisian troops eliminated him during operations on Mount Mghila on Nov. 17, 2015.⁶