THE BELGIAN SYNDROME: from rear base to front-line State for European jihadis

By Patrick BAHZAD

Last night's raids by Belgian police, and the ensuing shootout in the city of Verviers, bear the hallmarks of a gradual shift in the nature of the Belgian jihadi and radical Islamic scene. While authorities are denying any connections with the Paris attacks, there's enough circumstancial evidence to suggest a more complex picture.

 

Anyone who has ever been to Brussels could easily be fooled by the apparent tranquillity of the Belgian capital. If you had to ask Rummy, a.k.a. Donald Rumsfeld, he would tell you that this is deep "chocolate making country". But looks can be deceiving and Belgium has actually played a major role over the years in the spread of radical Islam and its most violent proponents, as evidenced by last night's events.

Belgian Federal Police stormed a building in the small town of Verviers, 70 miles east of Brussels. Just like the previous week in Paris, the suspects came out all guns blazing, before being cut down by Belgian SWAT after a 10 minutes firefight. Two of the men were killed, a third one seriously wounded.

Wiretaps helped foil the planned attacks

Details are slowly emerging about the nature of the plot that was foiled by thursday's police operation. The two men killed - one with a Chechen background whose identity is yet unknown and a certain Souhaib El Abdi from the Molenbeek area of Brussels - had returned from Syria about a week ago. Wiretaps show they had been in contact with a third man, likely to be the leader of this "cell", whom Belgian police believe to be Abdelhamid Abaaoud. 

Just like El Abdi, Abaaoud is originally from the area of Molenbeek, and had left for Syria to join ISIS. He's no longer fighting there however and is supposedly staying either in Turkey or Greece, from where he was coordinating the plans for the coming attacks. Finally, the man who was wounded and arrested in the Verviers raid, 25 year old Marouane El Bali, is another resident of the Molenbeek suburb of Brussels. His mother and cousin, who had initially also been taken into custody, have now been released.

According to several sources, the group had sent threatening letters to stores selling the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine and was planning for the bombing of Brussels' main court and attacks on police officers or police stations. This last piece of information in particular has raised concerns within Brussels' police to an even higher degree, given that several members of this police department had been under investigation for a number of months, on suspicion of having infiltrated the police on behalf of radical islamic groups.

Brussels ... Europe's "secret" jihadi capital

To counter-terrorism analysts and experts, thursday's events don't come as any surprize. Belgium has been a hotbed of radical Islam in Europe for many years, even though it had mostly been spared the kind of bloodshed we recently witnessed in the streets of Paris.

In May 2014 however, Algerian-French Mehdi Nemmouche opened fire on visitors of the Jewish Museum of Brussels, killing four and injuring one. He was arrested a week later in Marseille, in Southern France, and is now awaiting trial. Nemmouche is yet another example of this new brand of jihadi who started out as a gang member, before turning to radicalism while serving time in prison, just like the Paris hostage taker Amedy Coulibaly (see "THE 'HYBRID' TERROR CELL BEHIND THE PARIS ATTACKS – Part 1").

The May 2014 attack in Brussels undoubtedly marked a turning point in Belgium's awareness of radical Islam and its proponents in the country. Up until then, Belgium had mainly served as a rear base for militants from various countries, particularly during the days of the Afghan Jihad and the Algerian civil war. Back then the country was seen as a convenient hideout for radicals who would take advantage of lax surveillance, combined with easy access to a flourishing illegal arms market and proximity to the French border, where some of the Belgian based radicals organised a major terror campaign back in 1995 and planned for another one, in 1998, that was foiled by French intelligence. Already back then, some of the associates of the Paris attackers had close links to the Belgian terrorist nexus.

But just as in France, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and more recently the start of the civil war in Syria, marked a quantum leap in the expansion of the Belgian jihadi scene. The country is home to a large Muslim community, with a strong Moroccan or Turkish background. In some areas with large Muslim populations, small political parties or militant groups have also surfaced advocating either for a greater visibility of Islam or the straight out introduction of sharia law.

Belgium is also the European country that has sent the largest number of fighters to Syria (in per capita figures): according to conservative estimates, several hundred Belgian citizens have left to fight in Syria, with a substantial number having already returned. Mehdi Nemmouche, the shooter in last year's attack on the Jewish Museum, had joined ISIS in 2012, before coming back in March 2014, just one month before he went on his killig spree. And while technically, Nemmouche is not Belgian (he's Algerian-French), it should be noted that his place of birth is Roubaix, a French industrial town just south of the border.

This element actually points to the far reaching and longstanding connections that exist between jihadis in both countries. Interestingly, the brother of another notorious French terrorist, Mohamed Merah (involved in attacks against police and members of the French Jewish community that left 6 people dead in 2012) was frequently seen in a Brussels mosque, even though the Merah family was based 600 miles south of the Belgian capital.

Thursday's police raids definitely confirm that's Belgium's status in the landscape of Islamic radicalism in Europe has shifted: the three men who were shot yesterday in Verviers had recently returned from Syria and didn’t hesitate to use automatic weapons to attack the police.

Links to the Paris attacks

While Belgian police have emphatically denied any connection with the ongoing investigation into the Paris attacks, one cannot but wonder about possible links, in particular with Amedy Coulibaly. In fact, there were strong ties between Coulibaly and radicals in Belgium. In 2010 already, Coulibaly had been involved in another foiled terror plot in France (see "THE 'HYBRID' TERROR CELL BEHIND THE PARIS ATTACKS – Part 2") and had tried to buy weapons in Belgium.

The military grade arsenal that was found in connection with the Paris attacks have also been traced back to Belgium. In recent days, the town of Verviers – where last night's raid took place – was mentioned several times as one of the places where Coulibaly had been to get weapons. The small town in Eastern Belgium  is known both as a hotbed for Islamic radicalism and a stronghold of organised crime. Kosovo-Albanian gangs control the illegal arms trade here and weapons are allegedly cheaper and easier to come by than in Brussels. But establishing a direct link between the Verviers group and Coulibaly would be far-fetched at this point, based on existing evidence, especially since the three men had stayed in Syria for an undetermined amount of time, while Coulibaly never left France to fight in the Middle-East.

It should be mentioned however that Coulibaly was known as a close friend and associate of a notorious ISIS-terrorist in Syria and had ties to a Tunisian radical who's also member of a group that has pledged allegiance to ISIS. Short of ISIS claiming and proving its responsibility, only time and a thorough investigation will prove whether or not these personal links might help establish a connection with the three Verviers terrorists.

Illegal arms trade

Finally, it should not be forgotten that the police raid in Verviers was by no means the only one to take place last night. In fact, search warrants were executed in various neighbourhoods of Brussels, where Coulibaly supposedly also bought automatic weapons as well as a Serbian made RPG. The suburb of Molenbeek in particular, home to two of the men targeted in thursday's raid in Verviers, has a well established reputation as a trading place for illegal arms.

In February 2013 for example, police arrested a local man after they had searched his home and found two AK-47s, several handguns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, explosives, chemical manuals, 130 000 US dollars' worth of gold and, even more chilling, a map of the London subway. Likewise, in 2012, a network of illegal arms dealers was dismantled in cooperation with French police. Serbian and Turkish criminals had set up this business and police managed to seize dozens of automatic weapons, several handguns, two RPG rockets and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Incidentally, the arms dealers were working hand in hand with a French gang from Roubaix, the very same town where Mehdi Nemmouche, the killer from the Jewish Museum, had started his career both as a criminal and aterrorist.

 

Comments

[cville reader]

"Although their identity has not been confirmed yet, word has it the two dead suspects are young locals who came back from Syria just a week ago, Redouane Hajaoui and Tarik Jadaoune, the third man being also a local with a Chechen background."

May I ask you to clarify this for me? Are you saying that all three of the suspects were of a Chechen background, or only the third man?

[Patrick Bahzad]

thx for raising the issue - will 'edit' and clarify right away

[Charles I]

Patrick thank you for these very detailed accounts. The role of the secular criminal underground and its various political ramifications and consequences has always fascinated me.

Today this tangentially interesting reporting on Turkish weapons smuggling to Al-Qaeda arrived in inbox.

"Turkish military says MIT shipped weapons to al-Qaeda

Secret official documents about the searching of three trucks belonging to Turkey's national intelligence service (MIT) have been leaked online, once again corroborating suspicions that Ankara has not been playing a clean game in Syria. According to the authenticated documents, the trucks were found to be transporting missiles, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition. The Gendarmerie General Command, which authored the reports, alleged, "The trucks were carrying weapons and supplies to the al-Qaeda terror organization.” But Turkish readers could not see the documents in the news bulletins and newspapers that shared them, because the government immediately obtained a court injunction banning all reporting about the affair.'

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/turkey-syria-intelligence-service-shipping-weapons.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm

[Ishmael Zechariah]

The Belgians have always played an interesting game. In 2006 they had actually declined to try a "terrorist" provably guilty for an assassination because she used a “half-automatic weapon".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehriye_Erdal

http://www.todayszaman.com/national_erdal-scandal-shakes-belgian-cabinet_30459.html

What goes around comes around...

Ishmael Zechariah

[Amir]

What exactly came around?

In Belgian history, the political class' adagio is to "living and let live". They have survived by staying under the radar and quietly collaborating with all parties at the same time. And this even before the establishment of he country through out French Revolution, Napoleon, German Unification, WWI and 3rd Reich.

Their ruling class will not pay any price, don't worry.

[Tyler]

The question is will Europe do anything or will they insist on importing millions of more 3rd Worlders who hate them and everything they stand for while doing "unity marches"?

Time will tell I suppose. It could be raining bodies across Europe and you'd still have a fifth column of leftists insisting "RELIGHUN OF PEACE" and quoting General Casey about how "Our commitment to diversity would be our greatest casualty" like an idiotic sheep.

[LeaNder]

Ishmael, hmmm? I thought the Marxist-Leninist terrorist camp is extinct. But there you go.

Nevertheless the Belgium angle is not the only odd bit in the whole tale. So a lady with a fake ID carrying an unregistered weapon manages to escape shortly before the sentence in spite of a 24-hour surveillance by 30 agents? congratulations.

Back in Turkey she had let in the assassins of businessman Özdemir Sabancı. The killers were members of an extremist left-wing terrorist front, and are suspected to have been hired by a secular ultra-nationalist member of the Turkish Deep State, or the Turkish equivalent to the NATO Operation
Gladio:

"Recently released information has suggested that the assassination of Özdemir Sabancı's assassin Mustafa Duyar was planned by retired general Veli Küçük, who was detained in the Ergenekon investigation.[3][4]"

Image Erdal:
www.gva.be/cnt/aid1022455/fehriye-erdal-is-wellicht-dood

assassinated Özdemir Sabancı:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96zdemir_Sabanc%C4%B1

Ergenekon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_%28organization%29

[Amir]

The bigger question is whether Europe allows its biggest competitor (e.g. United States of America) to drag it in the latter's conflicts of choice in Ukraine, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

As you stated, the Europeans will end up paying the bill of the humanitarian disaster AND loose their markets as well as become more and more dependent on NATO.

I remember a time when W.E.U. was being promoted by Belgian Prime Minister Verhofstadt as an indigenous - separate but equal to US - pillar within NATO.

[Tyler]

Amir,

I imagine it will until the point the countries of Europe go tell Brussels to pound sand and GTFO of their countries. That populist movements are getting any traction in the current media environment (the demonization of PEDIGA is amazing for the audacity of its lies) should be worrying to every technocrat on the continent.

[LJ]

I would concur. Further, this topic should be enlarged to consider the possibility of another version of Operation Gladio. It was so successful, why shouldn't it be considered as a possibility.

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Most of those accused in the farce called "Ergenekon" have been released, including Gen. Veli Kucuk.
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/25982900.asp

This farce has helped the islamist kleptocrats consolidate their power somewhat.

Ishmael Zechariah

[Cee]

Amir,

Look up the latest article by Paul Craig RobertS ON THE Paris attacks.

[Babak Makkinejad]

US being their biggest competitor?

You must not be serious - they are in lockstep with US in everything of substance....

EU is being diminished as we speak...

[Babak Makkinejad]

There were many who moved West from the Eastern Europe - they are also causing issues.

The Iron Curtain kept the riff-raff out of Western European states, a fact that was not much appreciated until the collapse of communism.

Just like the functioning dictatorship of Qaddafi was not - as a bulwark against the African masses...

Italy was a must better place in 1996 than in 2006.

[Patrick Bahzad]

As already mentioned in another reply to a comment, Turkey is not the only country that isn't playing a clean game here.
It's definitely taking part in weapons deliveries to Syrian rebel groups, but the people behind theses deliveries are certainly not in Ankara, although the Turks have definitely an agenda of their own.

[Patrick Bahzad]

Belgium survived many crisis of that sort, this sounds more lile 'small fish' in comparison to other stuff they had over there.
If you're interested in this kind of thing I strongly recommend the story of the 'Brabant killers' who are still at loose:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabant_killers

[Patrick Bahzad]

On this one, I think Paul Craig Roberts is embarassing himself ... His account is not only full of factual inaccuracies just to make his point ... So basically, he's employging the same technics he's accusing the MSM of using: telling half-truths or twisting the facts so they fit his point.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

Interview with Marine Le Pan

http://www.wsj.com/articles/sohrab-ahmari-the-champion-of-french-anxiety-1421452216?KEYWORDS=le+pen

[Charles I]

Sible Edmonds' Boiling Frog is still offering quality reporting on the Turkish angle, e.g. this piece on facilitating Chechen "refugees" transit through Turkey.

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/12/31/capture-of-top-al-qaeda-operative-highlights-turkeys-role-in-u-s-nato-terror-operations/

[Charles I]

Now they will come to Europe by foot or by freighter in mass quantities in the next few decades, will really pit the South against the North. Bleeding hearts like me will wish there were Caliphates to keep some order over there while ruing authoritarianism at home. . .

[Charles I]

I just posted this in another comment below, deals with Chechen/Turkey/Syria transit. I'm interested where the criminals end, and the jihadis, nationalists, intelligence agencies begin.

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/12/31/capture-of-top-al-qaeda-operative-highlights-turkeys-role-in-u-s-nato-terror-operations/

[Babak Makkinejad]

Good, so we now get to the gist of the matter; EU states cannot tolerate or endure for long chaos in their Near Abroad.

Let us see if any of these so-called sovereign states in Europe will act rationally on state interests.

I personally doubt it.

[Tyler]

Babak,

I imagine the guillotine will be back in style before long.

[Tyler]

Charles,

"Camp of the Saints" will be looked at as non fiction here shortly.

[Larry M.]

Amir,

the point has already been made that the attacks in Paris would probably not have happened if President George W. Bush and his "coalition of the willing" had never invaded Iraq. Of course, this comes with the usual warning about speculation how history could have taken a different course.

In any case, the big question about what will follow from the Paris attacks is whether they will reduce future willingness among European NATO countries to join any future U.S. wars of choice.