Not only Brussels, but Antwerp too, is a significant terrorism hub in Belgium. By January 2016 there were about 440 Belgian jihadists in Syria and Iraq, and most of them were young Muslims from the suburbs of Brussels and Antwerp.
It was in Antwerp in March 2010 that Fouad Belkacem, a Belgian radical Muslim of Moroccan descent, established “Sharia4Belgium.” The group was actively involved in recruiting young Belgian Muslims for the jihad in Syria and Iraq. A Belgian court in Antwerp ruled in February 2015 that “Sharia4Belgium” was a dangerous terrorist organization and that Belkacem and his followers were responsible for sending dozens of young men to Syria. Belkacem, an arrogant and intolerant man, got a 12-years prison sentence.
On June 25, 2016, Belgian Federal Police arrested 38-year-old Saïd M’Nari in the Antwerp suburb of Borgerhout. M’Nari was Belkacem’s right-hand man and left for Syria in May 2013, where he reportedly joined the notorious terror group Al-Nusra, which is linked to Al-Qaeda. The Flemish Arabist Pieter Van Ostaeyen claims, however, that it is quite possible that M’Nari joined the so-called “Islamic State in Syria and Iraq” (ISIS or IS). “We don’t know which group he belonged to,” Van Ostaeyen told a Dutch radio reporter.
What is certain, however, is that M’Nari’s close friend, Hicham Chaib, is now fighting in the ranks of ISIS. Hicham Chaib is from the problematic Antwerp suburb of Borgerhout and became Belkacem’s “bodyguard.” He traveled to Syria in March 2013. The Antwerp court sentenced Chaib in absentia on February 11, 2015 to 15 years in prison.
Shortly after the ISIS-sponsored terrorist attacks in Brussels on March 22, 2016, Chaib, a war criminal, appeared in an ISIS video showing the execution of an ISIS opponent by him. He also announced in Flemish that there would be more terror attacks. “Just like you are bombing us, we will retaliate by killing you. Your women will be made widows and your children will be orphans. … We are not scared, but you are. You have been humiliated.”
M’Nari was sentenced by the court to twelve years in jail, but he was also in Syria at the time. He managed to slip into Belgium at the end of 2015, possibly via the Netherlands. Although he was on the terrorism watch list, no one in Belgium and Holland noticed that he was no longer in Syria but had somehow returned to Europe. He must have used a forged passport and had probably pretended to be a refugee. He would not have been the first terrorist returnee from Syria to do so.