The first international terrorist attack committed by al-Qaeda after 9/11 was executed in Tunisia on April 2, 2002. The target was al-Ghriba Synagogue, in the island of Djerba, and the suicide attacker killed 19 people and left 30 wounded. This presentation focuses on the reaction to such a crime of the main Tunisian Islamist movement, Harakat al-Nahda. More in particular, it analyses the condemnation of the leader of the movement, Rachid Ghannouchi, whose reaction to the attack, and to terrorism in general, can be unpacked into different elements. These include the condemnation of the killing of Muslims, Jews and Christians; the condemnation of al-Qaeda as an organisation that damages, instead of strengthening, Islam; the description of the international context as dominated by a Zionist-American alliance that created the conditions for the spread of terrorism; the criticisms against the Tunisian state that is considered co-responsible because of its detachment from the Islamic values of the Tunisians, and because of its illiberal regime that impedes the diffusion of a moderate Islamic movement. This presentation is based on the analysis of Ghannouchi's interviews and writings published in the years after the attack.