Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Chapter Nine Podcast Five

Belgium A recent cover [of a British satirical magazine] proclaimed, “Cameron to bomb ISIS heartland,” with a fighter pilot saying, “Belgium, here we come! Private Eye magazine, 2016   “A ghost town, a mummy of a town, it smells of death, the Middle Ages, and tombs.” Charles Baudelaire’s description of Brussels, circa 1860   Small Belgium, located in the heart of Western Europe and home to the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union, has more Islamic State (IS) foreign fighters per capita than any other Western country. It is home to many symbols of Western military, cultural, political, and social power. It also has more Muslims per capita than any other country in Europe. Half of the country’s Muslims live in Brussels. Islam mobilizes more people in Brussels than the Roman Catholic Church. Most of Brussels’s Muslims are from Morocco (70 percent).   As in other European countries, the Muslim population in Belgium is young. Nearly 35 percent of Moroccans and Turks in the country are under eighteen, compared with 18 percent of native Belgians. Since 2008, the most popular name for baby boys in Brussels has been Mohammed. It is also the most popular name for baby boys in Belgium’s second-largest city, Antwerp, where an estimated 40 percent of elementary school children are Muslim. If there is any Western country that exemplifies the Great Replacement, the transition from a secular to a Muslim Europe, it is Belgium. By early 2016, Belgium’s intelligence services had identified 451 Jihadists. They were, largely, not poor. Only one in six Jihadists came from an impoverished background.   Muslim–Non-Muslim Relations   Belgium was never an imperial power, except for its holdings in the Congo, nor was it associated with militarism. Nonetheless, Brussels was targeted because, in the words of the State, “Crusader Belgium “has not ceased to wage war on Islam.” Most Belgians were unaware of this image, and many Europeans asked how a country known for its beer, chocolate, and bureaucracy could become a European hotbed of radicalization and extremism. In many ways, Muslims and non-Muslims live very separate lives in the country.   To tourists, the Molenbeek area of Brussels feels like a South Asian or modern North African city. It spans 6 square kilometers and, with a population of nearly 100,000, is nearly twice as dense as the average Brussels neighborhood. The Bataclan murders in Paris were planned there, and approximately a hundred men and women from Molenbeek left to fight in the Middle East.   Belgium has been a hotbed of radical Islam for more than a decade, breeding organizations like Sharia4Belgium, which want, as their name proclaims, to have Sharia introduced in Belgium. They are loud, intimidating, and belligerent. When the Bataclan murders occurred, one leader of the group said, “We couldn’t hold our joy.” That November 2015 attack in neighboring France panicked Belgium as well. The metro was closed down. Prime Minister Charles Michel said authorities feared a “Paris-style” attack with explosives and weapons at several locations despite the hundreds of soldiers patrolling the city, home to the EU and NATO.   But Belgians are concerned about the many attacks that receive little or no media attention. For example, youths threw a petrol bomb under a Christmas tree, setting it aflame. As they ran away, the teens could be heard yelling “Allahu Akbar.” “Today they will set fire to a Christmas tree, tomorrow they will behead a Christian,” wrote one man.   The Caliphate   The Caliphate used Brussels as its center of planning and operations for two mass murders—the Paris killing of November 2015 and the Brussels attack of March 2016. In the Brussels attack, one of the three chief perpetrators, known as the “man in the hat,” was born in Syria and came to Europe as a refugee in 2015. The Islamic State bragged that it was sending cadres disguised as refugees to Europe to conduct operations.   Belgian security officials are worried that the State is planning a primitive biological attack. Security officials found rotting animal testicles in a terror suspect’s backpack. Such material can be used to poison food supplies or to create a deadly concoction aimed at spreading fatal diseases. The Brussels prosecutor issued a statement saying, “The rucksack contents . . . could at no time have been used to make a biological weapon.” Profile Thirty-Seven: Brussels Is on Fire   “I will tell you, I’ve been talking about this a long time, and look at Brussels. Brussels was a beautiful city, a beautiful place with zero crime. And now it’s a disaster city. It’s a total disaster, and we have to be very careful in the United States.” Donald Trump, in reference to the Brussels attack of 2016   It was an apocalyptic scene with blood and dismembered body parts scattered. Witnesses heard some men yelling in Arabic before the nail-filled bombs rocked the Brussels airport and the subway system, killing dozens. Witnesses described the ceiling caving in and blood everywhere after two explosions in the departure hall at Brussels Airport. The Islamic State struck with suicide bombers, and the entire country went into lockdown. All flights were canceled, arriving planes and trains were diverted, and Belgium’s terror alert level was raised to maximum. Authorities advised people in Brussels to remain in place, bringing the city to a standstill. Security was also tightened at all Paris airports.   “Brussels is on fire” is a hashtag used to express Islamist triumph. The most common remark under the hashtag was “You declared war against us and bombed us, and we attack you inside your homeland.” After each additional attack, ISIS supporters celebrated by writing “Allahu Akbar.” The popular hashtag was inspired by a similar one created by Caliphate supporters after the November 13 Paris terror attacks: “Paris is on fire.”   In a British prison, terrorist convicts shouted “Allahu Akbar” after learning of the attack. Some burst into song and dance to celebrate the slaughter. According to one source, the Council of Belgian Imams rejected a recent initiative to pray for the souls of the victims of the Brussels terror attacks on the grounds that praying for non-Muslims ran counter to Islamic law. Several days after the attack, Belgians organized a “March against Fear.” However, it was canceled due to security concerns.   Summary   For the French, 2015 and 2016 were years of terror. There were shootings, bombings, beheadings, stabbings, and a spectacular vehicular murder. After the murder of Father Hamel, one of his parishioners, a middle-aged woman, expressed the anxiety of many of her country: “Nowhere in France is safe anymore.”   In April 2016, Belgian security services conceded that there were probably dozens more Caliphate supporters in the country. European intellectuals asked themselves and their audiences what the small Central European country had done to deserve the attacks and the hatred of their Muslim countrymen. When the killings came, Belgium went into shock. But some Muslim leaders refused to offer a prayer for the dead because it was counter to Islamic law. Others celebrated the slaughter. According to Belgian interior minister Jan Jambon, “a significant section of the Muslim community danced” when attacks took place. Belgians who were fighting for the Caliphate in the Middle East tweeted their joy to former neighbors. From Syria, one said, “We will drink your blood to the last drop.”