The Tunisian Combatant Group (, Jama’a Combattante Tunisienne; ) or TCG was a loose network of terrorists with connections to Al-Qaeda that was founded in 2000 and aspired to install an Islamist government in Tunisia. According to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), TCG is believed to have had terrorist cells in France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom. By the 2010s, after its founders had been arrested and a long period of silence, it was not clear whether the group still existed. History The TCG was founded in 2000 by Tarek Ben Habib Maaroufi and Seifallah Ben Hassine, in close cooperation with al-Qaeda. The group aimed to establish an Islamic state in Tunisia that would be ruled according to Sharia. The strategy of the TCG was determined during a meeting in Khost, Afghanistan, where it declared its support for Osama bin Laden. Most of its members were trained in al-Qaeda-linked camps in Afghanistan, and it later organised training for new recruits in the camps. It has been described as an offshoot of the formerly banned Ennahda Movement. A number of the detainees held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps in Cuba remain in detention, in part, because American intelligence analysts allege that they were members of TCG. Maaroufi was arrested by Belgian authorities in December 2001, and in 2004 was sentenced to five years imprisonment. Since 2004 the TCG did not have capabilities to operate in Tunisia, and consequently moved their base to the Tunisian diaspora in Western Europe. Hassine was arrested by Turkish authorities in 2003, after which he was extradited to Tunisia, where he was sentenced to 43 years imprisonment. Following the Arab Spring and the Tunisian Revolution in 2011, Hassine was released from prison as part of a general amnesty and went on to found the militant Ansar al-Sharia group. The TCG is considered inactive due to the arrest of its founders, Maaroufi and Hassine. There are no figures for the number of members that were in the TCG, but the Ansar al-Sharia is thought to have up to 40,000 members. European branches The TCG had branches in several European countries. The Italian branch of the organisation was led by Sami ben Khemais Essid, and was dismantled by law enforcement in April 2001. Essid's group was connected to the "Frankfurt group," which was responsible for the Strasbourg