Category: Belgium

Belgium: 14 personnes interpellées, parmi elles : Malika El Aroud 1041 Reads

Thursday, December 11, 2008 - 04:27 PM

11.12.08 - 18:37

Une femme interpellée ce jeudi, Malika El Aroud, joue un "rôle important" dans ces enquêtes anti-terroristes. Son premier mari était mort en assassinant en Afghanistan le chef de la lutte contre les talibans, le commandant Massoud, en 2001. Son second mari est une figure centrale du groupe démantelé ce jeudi...
Malika El Aroud est-elle simplement "la femme du type qui a tué Massoud" ou est-elle bien plus que cela ? Cette question, deux tribunaux l'ont déjà posée. En 2003, c'était en Belgique. Elle avait été acquittée par le tribunal correctionnel lors du procès Trabelsi. A l'époque, la Justice a vu en elle la femme amoureuse suivant son mari, décrite par sa défense. Elle a pourtant participé à l'assassinat du commandant Massoud, en apportant le détonateur notamment.

Début 2007, Malika El Aroud est condamnée à six mois de prison ferme par un tribunal suisse. Motif : complicité de propagande terroriste sur Internet.En décembre, elle est interpellée en Belgique, puis relâchée 24heures plus tard. De plus en plus, on voit en elle l'une des plus importantes djihadistes de l'internet en Europe. Dans les colonnes de l'International Herald Tribune, elle se dit militante d'Al Qaïda. Elle explique inciter les hommes à se battre et les femmes à rejoindre sa cause. Et de terminer sur ses mots : "si je vais en prison, je serai un martyr vivant".

Belge, résidant à Bruxelles, la veuve de l'assassin du commandant Massoud s'est remariée. Son mari est une figure centrale du groupe démantelé ce jeudi.

Belgium: Belgium detains al-Qaeda suspects 470 Reads

Thursday, December 11, 2008 - 06:05 AM

Belgian police say they have detained 14 people suspected of being members of the al-Qaeda network.

They include a man believed to have been about to launch a suicide attack, officials said.

Federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle said police did not know where the suspected suicide attack was to target.

"It could have been an operation in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but it can't be ruled out that Belgium or Europe could have been the target," he said.

The arrests come as a two-day European Union leaders' summit was due to start in Brussels on Thursday afternoon.

Mr Delmulle said that given the timing of the EU summit, police had no choice but to act.

The police investigation, described as the most important anti-terror inquiry in Belgium, targeted an alleged group of Belgian Islamists believed to have been trained in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region, officials said, according to the AFP agency.

Belgium: Belgian police hold 11 linked to Morocco attacks 308 Reads

Sunday, November 30, 2008 - 01:24 AM

100 officers make 12 raids following declarations made to Belgian police by Abdelkader Belliraj.

BRUSSELS- Belgian police took 11 men into custody Thursday following a request by Moroccan authorities, amid an investigation into a suspected terrorist group in Belgium, federal prosecutors said.
The 11 were picked up during 12 raids, involving around 100 officers, in Brussels, Tongres, in northeast Belgium, central Nivelle and Arlon in the southeast, spokeswoman Lieve Pellens said.
The raids follow declarations made to police early this year by Abdelkader Belliraj, a Belgian and Moroccan national on trial in Morocco on suspicion of having led an Al Qaeda-linked group.
Belliraj is alleged to have provided police with a list of potentially dangerous Belgian-Moroccans still living in the kingdom, Pellens said.
Seven of the 11 -- six Moroccans and an Algerian national -- could be deported because they do not have Belgian nationality, she said, adding that such justice proceedings could yet take several weeks.
The investigating judge was to decide later Thursday whether the other four should be detained.
Police also seized computers and documents during the raids, but no weapons or explosives were found.
Belgian media had reported that Belliraj, who has dual Moroccan and Belgian nationality, was a long-time paid informer for the Belgian intelligence services.
But some say this collaboration was just a cover and that he was a die-hard jihadist who spent time in extremist camps in Afghanistan.
Moroccan authorities have said he has confessed to several unsolved murders committed in Belgium in 1989.

Belgium: Al Qaeda jailbreak is foiled 287 Reads

Friday, December 21, 2007 - 08:44 PM

BRUSSELS: Belgian police yesterday boosted security in Brussels over fears of a possible Christmas attack after the arrest of 14 suspected Islamists, the interior ministry said. The suspects were detained yesterday in a police raid following the discovery of plans to free an Al Qaeda sympathiser from prison using weapons and explosives, justice officials said.

"They could be preparing an attack," Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said, citing "elements" of information gathered by a team set up to co-ordinate Belgium's security services.

Security was tightened "in busy public places", such as the capital's underground metro system, railway stations and the international airport, as well as at Christmas markets and in shopping districts. The measures will remain in place until January 2.

Earlier, an interior ministry spokesman announced that "Belgium must adopt security measures after the discovery, during a police raid, of plans for a prison breakout.'

"The justice authorities did not want to take any risk and wanted to foil any possible attack," a spokesman said, but underlined: "At the moment there is no indication that an attack is being prepared."

A spokeswoman for Belgium's federal prosecutor's office said that the arrests were made after police discovered the jail break plan involving "weapons and explosives."

Officials said the aim of the aborted plan was to free Nizar Trabelsi, who was sentenced in 2004 to 10 years' jail for planning, with other militants, an attack on a military base in Belgium where US nuclear missiles are thought to be stationed.

He was arrested on September 13, 2001, two days after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, in an apartment in Brussels. He was in possession of a cache of chemicals which could be used to make a powerful explosive.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=203566&Sn=WORL&IssueID=30277