Antwerp: Youth leave for jihad training in Pakistan

"... youth were incited with anti-Jewish songs and considered the nightly trips as preparations for Holy War."

"Dozens of Muslim youth leave Antwerp every year for Pakistan [Pakistan - well, isn't this a surprise?]. There they are immersed in radical Islam. But also in Belgium they prepare in and out of the mosques for the war with the West.

There are five mosques in Antwerp-North barely several hundred meters from each other. Besides being prayer houses for thousands of moderate Muslims they are also the base for small extremist groups who spread expressly anti-Western ideas. A not unimportant portion of the younger Muslims often leave for Pakistan to be instructed in madrassas or Koran schools. The most important destination for the Antwerp youth is the Haqqania madrassa of Sami Ul-Haq, a head of the Pakistani Islamic Party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. Ul-Haq visited the Khatim-Al-Anbia mosque in Antwerp a couple of years ago. In 2005 he declared in Asia Times that whenever the Taliban put out a call for fighters, he would simply close down the madrassa and send his students off to fight.

The majority of the Antwerp youth return to Belgium after forty days. But here and there there's one, such as Kirgies Abdul Aziz who never come back.

The Belgian security services are aware of the extremist danger of the groups. Some can easily get weapons in Belgium. They also organize "jihad trainings" in the Ardennes for the youth. When a few neighbors from Agimont (next to Dinant) complained about the acts last year and the local police arrived on site, there was little to do. Nonetheless the youth were incited with anti-Jewish songs and considered the nightly trips as preparations for Holy War.

Belgian extremist groups are not limited to Antwerp. In Liège and Brussels mostly young Muslims are occupied with Jihad. They are often led by seemingly well integrated colleagues or older imams. The French sheik of Syrian origin Bassam Ayachi of the Centre Islamique Belge in Anderlecht is one such man. The federal police is happy that they've gotten rid of this dangerous person for a while. Ayachi was arrested in the Italian port city Bari several weeks ago. Five non-EU citizens who had been smuggled from the Middle East to Western Europe were found in a hidden compartment of his camper. In Italy there are very strict punishments for such crimes.

Flemish P. (25) converted to Islam when he was 17. He quickly got in touch with recruiters who very actively sought young recruits for the Holy War. When P. was ready to depart to Pakistan, he finally saw straight. He contacted the Antwerp police and later also became an informant for the State Security Service."

Source: Knack (Dutch) - English version: Islam in Europe

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