 | Parts of this article (those related to 2018) need to be updated.(June 2018) |
This article covers attacks and activity of terrorism in Belgium.
| Parts of this article (those related to 2018) need to be updated.(June 2018) |
This article covers attacks and activity of terrorism in Belgium.
In the 1990s Belgium was a transit country for Islamist terrorist groups like the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) and the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM). [1]
Belgium has a population of 11 million including large numbers of immigrants from Muslim countries. 100,000 Moroccan citizens live in Belgium, often descended from Moroccans recruited to work in the mining industry in the 1960s; a small fraction of the children and grandchildren of the immigrant generation have been attracted to Militant Islamism and jihad. A tiny fraction of this large Muslim population has participated in terrorist attacks. [2] In a report by the Combating Terrorism Center, of the 135 individuals surveyed in connection with terrorism, there were 12 different nationalities. Of those 65% had Belgian citizenship and 33% were either Moroccan citizens or had ancestral roots there. [3]
In 2016, Belgian researcher estimated that about 562 individuals had travelled to become foreign fighters in the Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars, the majority of whom joined the Islamic State with others joining the al-Qaida-affiliated group Al-Nusra Front. [4] The majority of those who went to the Syria in the 2012-2016 time span were of Moroccan descent according to U.S. and Belgian authorities. [5]
Belgium has been the base of operations for a number of terrorist attacks in the 2010s, including the November 2015 Paris attacks. [2] It has also been the place where some Islamist militants developed militant views before going to the Middle East to fight with ISIS. [2]
In June 2016, with 451 fighters having travelled to join the Syrian Civil War, Belgium had the highest number of foreign fighters per capita. [1]
The November 2015 Paris attacks in France were coordinated and planned from Belgium. The overall leader of that terrorist cell was believed to be Mohamed Belkaid, an Islamic State operative from Algeria who previously had lived in Sweden. Belkaid was killed in a shootout in the Foret district of Brussels, during which Belkaid was firing on police to allow Salah Abdeslam to escape. Salah Abdeslam was arrested a few days later and the surviving members of the cell, including brothers Najim Laachraoui and Khalid and Ibrahim Bakraoui (previously armed robbers) launched the 2016 Brussels bombings targeting Brussels airport and metro killing 32. [1]
Terrorism experts regard Islamic State activities in Europe's Francophone area as a single, French-Belgian junction of ISIS activity and attacks. [6]
On 15 January 2015, Belgian police carried out a raid on premises in Verviers, Belgium. According to news sources, the raids were an anti-terrorist operation against Islamist radicals.
Salah Abdeslam is a Belgian-born Islamist terrorist who was sentenced to life in prison in 2022 as the only surviving member of the 10-man unit that carried out the attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, in which 130 people were killed and more than 490 injured.
On 22 March 2016, two coordinated terrorist attacks in and close to Brussels, Belgium, were carried out by the Islamic State (IS). Two suicide bombers detonated bombs at Brussels Airport in Zaventem just outside Brussels, and one detonated a bomb on a train leaving Maelbeek/Maalbeek metro station in the European Quarter of Brussels. Thirty-two people were killed and more than 300 were injured. Three perpetrators also died. A third airport attacker fled the scene without detonating his bomb, which was later found in a search of the airport. A second metro attacker also fled, taking his bomb with him. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Najm al-'Ashrāwī, also known as Abū Idrīs al-Baljīkī or Soufiane Kayal, was a Belgian-Moroccan terrorist and Islamic State militant who was one of two suicide bombers at Brussels Airport in the 2016 Brussels bombings. The Islamic State confirmed that he was responsible for making all the explosives used in the November 2015 Paris attacks.
The Brussels Islamic State terror cell was a group involved in large-scale terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in March 2016. The terror cell was connected to the Islamic State (IS), a jihadist terrorist organisation primarily based in Syria and Iraq.
Islamic terrorism in Europe has been carried out by the Islamic State (ISIL) or Al-Qaeda as well as Islamist lone wolves since the late 20th century. Europol, which releases the annual EU Terrorism Situation and Trend report (TE-SAT), used the term "Islamist terrorism" in the years 2006–2010, "religiously inspired terrorism" 2011–2014, and has used "jihadist terrorism" since 2015. Europol defines jihadism as "a violent ideology exploiting traditional Islamic concepts".
On 6 August 2016, a man attacked two policewomen with a machete in Charleroi, Belgium, before being shot dead by another police officer.
On 5 October 2016, three police officers were attacked by a man wielding a machete in the Schaerbeek municipality of Brussels, Belgium. Two of them suffered stab wounds, while the third was physically assaulted but otherwise uninjured. The suspected assailant, a Belgian citizen named Hicham Diop, was apprehended and charged with attempted terrorism-related murder and participating in a terrorist group.
ISIL-related terrorist attacks in France refers to the terrorist activity of the Islamic State in France, including attacks committed by Islamic State-inspired lone wolves. The French military operation Opération Sentinelle has been ongoing in France since the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks.
Stabbing attacks, which have been used as a terrorist tactic for thousands of years, became an increasingly common form of terrorist attack on random civilians in the 21st century, in particular during the 2010s and 2020s.
The Hanover stabbing that occurred on 26 February 2016 was a terrorist stabbing of a police officer in Hanover, Germany, by a 15-year-old girl born to a Moroccan mother and a German father. She had been raised under the influence of salafist preachings, as early as 7 years. She had been investigated by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution for preparing a serious crime already in 2014 and had traveled to meet ISIS members in Istanbul in November 2015. It was the first reported attack by an ISIS sympathiser in Germany.
On 20 June 2017, a terrorist bomb caused a small explosion at Brussels-Central railway station in Brussels, Belgium; there were no casualties. Soldiers patrolling the station subsequently killed the suspect with three to four shots, according to eyewitnesses. The perpetrator was Oussama Zariouh, a 36-year-old Moroccan national who lived in the Molenbeek municipality and who had assembled a defective explosive device.
The August 2017 Brussels attack occurred near the Grand-Place/Grote Markt in Brussels, Belgium, on 25 August 2017, when two soldiers were injured by an assailant wielding a knife.
On 29 May 2018, Benjamin Herman, a prisoner on temporary leave from prison, stabbed two female police officers, took their guns, shot and killed them and a civilian in Liège, Belgium. The gunman took a woman hostage before he was killed by police. The attacker had since 2017 been suspected of having been radicalised in prison after converting to Islam, and was reported to be part of the entourage of a prison Islamist recruiter. The method of the attack was said by investigators to match and be specifically encouraged by the Islamic State which claimed the attack. Prosecutors say they are treating the attacks as "terrorist murder". The attack is treated as "jihadist terrorism" by Europol.
The 2018 Brussels stabbing attack occurred on 20 November 2018 when a man wielding two knives attacked police officers outside a police station adjacent to the Grand-Place/Grote Markt in Brussels, Belgium. A police officer was wounded and the attacker was shot and injured by the police. Both the attacker and a wounded officer were hospitalized with non life-threatening injuries. An investigation for possible links to terrorism is underway. Jan Jambon, Belgium's Minister of the Interior and Security, said the suspect had been interned and recently freed.
More than 500 Belgians have left for Syria since 2012 and most of them, according to Belgian and U.S. officials, have been of Moroccan descent.
inla antwerp bomb 1979.