Tunisia jails 10 men for links to al Qaeda in Iraq

TUNIS (Reuters) - A Tunisian court jailed 10 men for up to five years on Wednesday for attempting to join al Qaeda fighters in Iraq, a defense lawyer said.

"Karim Elbaloumi, an architecture student, was given five years in prison and the other nine were sentenced to two years in jail," lawyer Samir Dylo said.

Dylo said the court convicted the men of planning to join insurgents, having military training and recruiting people to fight U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.

Tunisian authorities have been cracking down on people willing to join insurgents in Iraq, despite widespread sympathy among the North African country's 10 million population for anti-U.S. fighters in Iraq.

Lawyers say about 1,000 people have been arrested since 2003 on terrorism charges, including recruiting fighters for the Iraqi insurgency.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; editing by Andrew Roche)