Was Tunisian President Ben Ali a CIA, French and Mossad agent?

Was Tunisian President Ben Ali a CIA, French and Mossad agent?

With his fruit stall confiscated and no prospects for his future, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on 17 December 2010. Riots, violence, pro-democracy protests, revolutions, change of governments, free elections and foreign military interventions, all started because of the suicide of the 26-year old fruit seller.

Fifty years earlier, out of school, unemployed, aimless, Ben Ali was recruited by the French
elite military school, St Cyr.

After this initial training, the future kleptocrat joined the Fort Holabird Intelligence School
in Maryland, USA.

From France to his coup d’état to take the Tunisian presidency in 1987, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s career had always been connected to the French defence services, the CIA and Arab-feared Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.

Nicolas Beau wrote an unauthorised biography of the dictator in 2002, “Notre Ami Ben Ali” (“Our Friend Ben Ali”). It was a best-seller in spite of the French authorities’ embarrassment.
In an interview, the former Le Monde Middle East correspondent says that: "In 1987, undoubtedly he had contacts with the CIA. But in 1991, he took the side of Saddam!” The expert in Tunisian politics takes a few puffs of his Gitane before answering my next question. “Sincerely, I do not really see him as a CIA agent. But then there are links with Mossad..."

Abu Jihad - founder of Fatah, the Palestinian secular party - alongside two top PLO executives were killed in April 1988 near the Presidential Palace in Carthage by a commando led by Ehud Barack - future Israeli Prime Minister.

The same evening, Tunisian police had evacuated residents of the neighbourhood, cut electricity and telephone lines. There was a black-out around Abu Jihad’s house while the presidential palace was functioning normally. Mossad’s commando had free hands to kill quietly the two PLO members and the Fatah’s leader in front of his wife and son.

Israeli newspaper Maariv published a report ten years later writing that Ben Ali was watching from his palace the Israeli commando disembarking and accomplishing their mission.

Another source is Ben Ali’s former best friend. Béchir Turki has just published a book about the corrupt ex-president, “Ben Ali le Ripou” (“Ben Ali, the Rotten”). In it he declares that: “for the majority of Tunisians, the relationship between Ben Ali and Mossad is an open secret.”

If the Iranian authorities had not lost credibility, the media would have paid more attention to the recent declarations of Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khameini, on 4th February stating that: “the ex-president of Tunisia was a CIA agent.”

Another intriguing fact, the so-called “Jasmin Revolution” leaves many Tunisians aghast. “Jasmin revolution” was indeed the code name that the CIA used during Ben Ali’s coup d’état in 1987.

All these correlations between the disgraced president and the intelligence agencies are puzzling in the least.

With recent developments in Libya and across the Middle East, other dictators may share
Ben Ali’s fate, and similar facts may surface to embarrass Western governments.