This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/6914
March 3, 2015
By EMERSON VERMAAT
Most European recruits for the jihad in Syria are second or third generation Muslim immigrants. On February 11, 2015, the Antwerp Court convicted 45 jihadist suspects in a trial known as the Sharia4Belgium trial. The court ruled that Sharia4Belgium was a terrorist group or organization. Its leader, a Belgian-Moroccan named Fouad Belkacem was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Most of those who were convicted are still in Syria or have died there. Five of those who were convicted returned to Belgium before the trial began last year.
The court ruled that Sharia4Belgium played a leading role in recruiting Belgian jihadists for the jihad in Syria. About 350 Belgian jihadists traveled to Syria and Iraq. Most of them are second generation Moroccan immigrants or Belgian converts to Islam. Some of these jihadists committed serious war crimes in Syria. Houssein Elouassaki, a jihadist from the restive town of Vilvoorde (a real hotbed of jihadism), was in charge of one hundred Belgian, Dutch and French jihadists who had joined Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen, a jihadist group which would later join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or IS). Elouassaki was involved in torture, hostage taking, beheadings and executions. He is no longer alive.
Some Belgian jihadists were indoctrinated by Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. The court quoted FBI findings according to which Brahim Bali (now 28 years old) and Azdine Tahiri (now 27 years old) traveled to Yemen with a view to joining AQAP, the same movement which would later claim to be responsible for the terrorist attacks in Paris in January 2015. They were expelled from Yemen in April 2012. Brahim Bali also visited Lebanon where he met Omar Bakri Mohamed, a radical Muslim cleric who glorifies Osama bin Laden. Bali and Tahiri subsequently traveled to Syria to join the Al-Nusra Front, the local Al-Qaeda branch.
26-year-old Sofiane Amghar and 23-year-old Khalid Ben Larbi lived in the problematic Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, where Muslim radicalism is rampant. These two second generation Moroccan immigrants traveled to Syria in April 2014 where they joined ISIS. It was probably in Syria that a plan was hatched out to attack and abduct Belgian police officers and attack police stations. After Amghar en Ben Larbi returned to Belgium, they rent a house in Verviers. The police were aware of the plot and attacked their safe house on January 15, 2015. The terrorists were killed, another terrorist was wounded. The terrorists had kalashnikovs and they were the first to open fire on the police.
Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, was an ISIS terrorist who had previously traveled to Syria. He killed four Jewish visitors in the Jewish Museum in Brussels on May 24, 2014. Some 1,400 young Muslims living in France have joined or plan to join the jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
Two terrorists attacked the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January, 7 2015. Charlie Hebdo is a satirical weekly magazine that published cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohamed.
The Charlie Hebdo attack was an AQAP operation carried out by two French terrorists armed with kalashnikovs. Saïd, 34, and Chérif Kouachi, 32, were two brothers born and raised in Paris. Their parents were Algerian immigrants. Saïd visited Yemen in 2009, 2010 and 2011 where he was trained by AQAP militants. Chérif Kouachi wanted to join Al-Qaeda in Iraq in January 2005, but was arrested before he was able to leave France. He further radicalized in prison where he met Ahmed Coulibaly, a second generation Malian immigrant with a criminal record. On January 9, 2015, 32-year-old Coulibaly attacked a Jewish supermarket in Paris, killing four people. He had previously sworn allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
Abdelkarim el Atrach, a 28-year-old Dutch-Moroccan jihadist in Syria who joined Al-Nusra, said that the Charlie Hebdo attackers were heroes. There are now over 200 Dutch jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
22-year-old Omar Abdel Hamid el Hussein was born in Denmark to Palestinian parents. On February 14, 2015, on Saturday afternoon, that is, he attacked the Krudttonden Cultural Center in Copenhagen where an event titled "Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression" took place. Among those present were Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, Danish film director Finn Norgard and French ambassador François Zimeray. Finn Norgard was killed, three police officers were wounded.
The terrorist managed to escape. The next day, at about one o'clock in the morning, he attacked the Great Synagogue in Copenhagen where a Bat Mitzvah ceremony attended by 80 people was taking place. The terrorist failed to enter the synagogue but he killed 37-year-old Dan Uzan, a volunteer security guard. El Hussein himself was killed by the police at around five o'clock in the morning. He lived in Norrebro, a district of Copenhagen where crime and Islamic radicalism abound. El Hussein had pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi on his Facebook page shortly before the attacks. He was a copycat killer inspired by the terrorist attacks in Paris.
His funeral in Brondby, a suburb of Copenhagen, took place on February 20, on a Friday, that is. Some 500 people attended the funeral, including admirers and sympathizers who believed that Omar Abdel Hamid el Hussein was a martyr.
On that same day, two suicide bombers destroyed a mosque in the high level Central Hotel in Mogadishu. Twenty-five people were killed, two members of parliament and the deputy mayor of Mogadishu were among the dead. Dutch TV news reported on February 21, that the perpetrators were Dutch Somalis – a man and a woman.
Jihadism and Muslim radicalism pose a very serious security threat to Europe. Too many young Muslims are answering the call to jihad. Virtually all of them are also anti-Semites. There is a direct link between the rapid growth of anti-Semitism in Europe and the radicalization of Muslim youths. Muslim radicals are Islamofascists who want to conquer Europe and kill Jews and Christians – all of them.
More than a quarter of British Muslims sympathize with the terrorists who committed the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, according to a recent poll.
Josef Schuster, the chairman of the Central Jewish Council in Germany, recently advised Jews not to wear a kippa in those parts of German cities where migrants are concentrated. Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, chief rabbi of the Netherlands, addressed of conference of Christians in Nijkerk, on March 2, 2015. He said that it is no longer possible to discuss the facts of the Holocaust in some Dutch schools. ‘My life may even be in danger, if I were to wear a kippa in city areas with many Muslim residents.'
Emerson Vermaat is an investigative reporter and writer in the Netherlands specialized in crime, terrorism and the Holocaust. He is the author of a lengthy Dutch study on Auschwitz. Website: www.emersonvermaat.com.
Sources:
Vonnis Rechtbank van Eerste Aanleg Antwerpen, February 11, 2015, Notitie nummer: FD35.98.47–12-AN35.F1.1809-12:
http://www.rechtbankeersteaanlegantwerpen.be/images/AN35F11809-12.pdf
Het Nieuwsblad (Belgium), February 11, 2015, Overzicht. Deze straffen kregen de beklaagden in het terrorismeproces:
http://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20140930_01295313
De Standaard (Belgium), February 11, 2015, Sharia4Belgium: Welke straf krijgt elke beklaagde:
http://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20150210_01521286
IPT News, February 25, 2015, A Quarter of British Muslims Sympathize with Paris Attack Terrorists:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4788/a-quarter-of-british-muslims-sympathize-with
Norddeutsche Rundfunk (NDR), February 27, 2015, Was tun gegen zunehmende Judenfeindlichkeit:
Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland, February 27, 2015, "Antisemitismus ist Problem für gesamte Gesellschaft":
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/6914