Suspected Jihadist cell targeted by police in EU state, 13 detained — Analysis

Anti-terrorism magistrates had given approval for the raids, which concerned greater than 100 officers, as a part of a wider investigation into Jihadist actions within the area, federal prosecutors stated in an announcement.

“An Antwerp group inside the Salafist jihadist milieu has come below scrutiny and the goal of this operation was to additional map out the group’s actions,” the assertion reads. 

It provides that the 13 suspects detained will seem in entrance of the investigating decide who will resolve whether or not to pursue felony expenses towards them.

Belgian officers have raised considerations about Antwerp and Brussels being house to a hive of Islamist exercise within the nation.

Talking in 2017, then-Inside Minister Jan Jambon stated {that a} excessive proportion of the individuals who left Belgium to hitch Jihadist causes within the Center East had come from Brussels, notably the district of Molenbeek.

Molenbeek was labeled a “hotbed for Islamism” by some officers, significantly within the aftermath of the Paris assaults of November 13, 2015, which left 130 lifeless. A number of of the jihadists concerned hailed from Molenbeek.

In the meantime, the jihadist group Sharia4Belgium, based in 2010 and disbanded two years later, was primarily based in Antwerp. Numerous its members traveled to Syria to battle for Islamist teams, together with ISIS.

Its former chief, Fouad Belkacem, was sentenced to 12 years in jail in 2015 for his function in driving recruitment for the group and was subsequently stripped of his Belgian citizenship.

Belgium itself has additionally been focused by Islamist teams, with the capital hit by a double suicide bomb assault by ISIS in 2016, killing 32 individuals and wounding 340.