Belgium Holds Six Suspects Over Syria War Recruitment

 

Belgium Holds Six Suspects Over Syria War Recruitment

By REUTERS

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/04/16/world/middleeast/16reuters-syria-crisis-belgium.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

 

 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian police raided 48 homes across the country on

Tuesday and detained six men after a year-long investigation into an

Islamist group suspected of recruiting fighters for Syria's civil war.

 

Prosecutors said Fouad Belkacem, the leader of Sharia4Belgium, was one of

the six, but declined to give details on the others, beyond saying one had

returned wounded from Syria.

 

Prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt told a news conference that he and his

colleagues were investigating whether Sharia4Belgium constituted a terrorist

organisation, membership of which could lead to a jail term of up to 10

years.

 

"The investigation shows that Sharia4Belgium is part of a broad

international jihadist movement," Van der Sypt said.

 

Foreign Islamist insurgents are increasingly playing a role in Syria's civil

war, which started in March 2011 with street protests against the

four-decade rule of the family of President Bashar al-Assad.

 

Sharia4Belgium is accused of giving ideological and combat training,

organising violent activities in Belgium and recruiting Islamist fighters

for conflicts abroad. Van der Sypt said prosecutors were aware of 33 people

with links to the group who were either in or on their way to Syria.

 

"The recruitment occurred, for example, by youths being spoken to on the

street and then invited to private meeting places in Antwerp," he said.

 

Police seized computers, mobile telephones and money in the house searches,

mostly in the northern province of Antwerp.

 

The Syrian conflict pits the Sunni Muslim majority against Assad's

supporters among his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and has

prompted both Sunni and Shi'ite militants from elsewhere to fight in Syria.

 

Sharia4Belgium is a Salafist group opposed to Assad. Belkacem, who described

himself as the spokesman for Sharia4Belgium, was convicted last year of

inciting hatred and violence against non-Muslims and ordered to wear an

electronic monitoring ankle band.

 

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Pravin

Char)

 

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