Public not informed enough about Jihad terrorism in Belgium

Not informing the public

You may wonder if it had good use not to inform the general public about certain movements in the country. For some months I also tried to get some Islamic preachers to write on one of my platforms: Stepping Toes and From Guestwriters, because I did find several Belgians get a wrong idea about Islam because of the media attention to the fundamentalist groups in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and other countries. The presentation in the media of the Belgians preaching in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq did not help to get a good understanding between Christians and Muslims. In Syria, the father and child from Sint-Pieters Woluwe preaching hate against the Western World, presented on several news channels, also abroad, could give also a wrong picture of Muslims in Belgium and have the neighbour countries as well as the United States getting a wrong pictures about the Belgians their feeling about our world. I, therefore could understand some reactions on certain American sites, but think their impression and reaction is much exaggerated.

On the other hand, having the Belgian information service not being open, it could also well be, those people living in Belgium are too much at ease.

Planned attacks

The Belgian Justice Department in recent months could intervene and take care that several Jihad attacks could not occur. The Belgian daily De Tijd (The Time)announces that several former Flemish Syria combatants and sympathizers of IS were arrested. The paper based its writings on information from judicial circles.

Those planned attacks would be similar to attacks on the Jewish Museum in Brussels at the end of May, writes De Tijd. But what goals the terrorists had in mind, does the Time not tell. From other sources we may understand that the European Commission offices in Brussel were on the list of a man and woman of Turkish origin who were picked up at Zaventem airport on their return from Turkey.

Several sources have also told the Flemish National Radio and television station VRT News that a jihadist group was detained in Antwerp during the summer. Their preparations for an attack were well advanced and they had, for example already bought weapons.

It is not clear what their target was to be or whether they had links to jihadi fighting in Syria. They are however reported to have drawn the inspiration for their planned attack for IS.

In June, a court ordered that 46 suspected members of Sharia4Belgium, a radical Islamist group believed to be involved in sending young fighters to Syria, should stand trial on various charges, including involvement in a terrorist organisation.

Hold secret to prevent unrest

The Belgian government has deliberately kept the information secret to prevent unrest. It is the first time that something comes out in the open about concrete plans for jihad attacks in Belgium. We do know about 750 Belgians who went to fight in Syria. Certainly 325 Belgians left recently to Syria to fight on the Muslim fundamentalist site. 90 of them have returned to Belgium. The police and the intelligence and security can not follow all those returned Jihad fighters. And it is not clear how their intentions are for the situation in Belgium. I also could not find a clear image from the several Muslims I spoke with the recent months. Some of them had in my eyes a too fundamentalist idea to be healthy in a democratic country. Some their non-outspokenness did even frighten me for the safety of the free mind where we should stand for.

Fundamentalist preachers giving a twisted picture of local citizens

Belgium, Holland and England have taken too much tolerance for certain fundamentalist preachers, not controlling enough those imams which spoke against our way of life and who wanted to destroy the common western attitude of living. There was not sufficient guidance nor enough support for unemployed Muslim youth, making them an easy target to recruit for the Jihad in the Middle East.

Belgium’s Nieuwsblad wrote:

 “The recent increase is striking, and is according to our information partly explainable by the enormous amount of propaganda that ISIS produces on social media. The spread of shocking images, such as the mass execution of 250 Syrian soldiers, and the execution of American journalist James Foley, seem only to send Muslim youth towards radicalization.”

Also in the Netherlands certain imams are giving wrong ideas of the inhabitants of the Low Countries. Several families find their “brothers and sisters” in the different active groups of non-controled Islam groups (outside the Islamic Confederation or Islamic Raad/Islamic Council)

Dutch–Moroccan Islamist and convicted murderer Mohammed Bouyeri

The Hofstadgroep or het Hofstadnetwerk “Hofstad Network” is the name given by the Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD) to a group of radical Islamic youths of mostly young Dutch Muslims of mainly North African ancestry. 14 of them were suspected of terrorist activities. The members of the group regularly came together in de Hofstad, the nickname of the city of The Hague, where some of the terrorists live. Abdeladim Akoudad, also known as Naoufel is one of the suspects of the Casablanca Attacks. They also regularly met in the house of  Dutch–Moroccan Islamist  Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh. Samir Azzouz, suspected of planning terrorist attacks on the Dutch parliament and several strategic targets such as the national airport and a nuclear reactor also belongs to this group which has connection with Belgian activists The group is also suspected of planning to kill several members of government and parliament.

Muslims versus other faith-groups

Syrian Islamic Scholar, Shaykh al-Yaqoubi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A big problem with a lot of Muslims (Mahommedan, Mohammedan, Moslem, Musulman) is also that they do not see any difference between Christians and mostly think they ‘all’ are worshippers of more than one God, whilst there are enough Christians in Belgium who only believe in One God, Jehovah and only worship this One Allah. Those Unitarian Christians do take Jesus to be a prophet and man of flesh and blood who really died. Those Christians who only worship Allah but follow the teachings of the master teacher Jeshua (Jesus Christ) and not of the prophet Muhammad, are mostly very open minded to other faith groups and do not want to harm any other believer or non-believer, respecting the freedom of speech.

When the Muslim World wants to impose their doctrinal teachings on to the habitants of the West we naturally would pose questions about that. The same as we warn for the dangers of the fundamentalist evangelicals and pentecostals, we should warn for the danger of fundamentalist Islamic groups.

Freedom of faith

I would agree with some sources who find we should keep an eye onto such fundamentalist teachers, be it Muslims or Christians or people against believers. We should leave everybody to believe what they want to believe and in what they want to believe. In case they would think ‘the cow can help to heal their diseases’ let them think it can do it, by a matter of speak. In our contemporary industrialist society we should allow the modern media play their role and let people be able to use modern technology how they want to use it, as long as they do not hinder other people with it.

Returning Syria-fighters and oppression

To shadow those youngsters who came back from Syria 24 hours a day, seven days a week, may require a lot of men, but because it are young people who had their brains twisted in a certain way, I do think it would be better to use enough energy to protect the other civilians. A few rotten apples can do a lot of damage in the basket.

Today it is still, as in the old times, having politics and power having first priority and groups willing to oppress those who do not like to think the same way as they. Danger is that we can find a new crusade period, this time the other way round again, having Islamic people trying to convert the heathen, Jews and Christians. For some of those Muslims the methods of the 12th and 13th century are still very much liked. Some of them also seem to live more than 100 yeas ago, or want to go back to the middle ages.

Decadence stumbling block

Dēcadentia part of turning-point in cultures, like we have seen by the Romans. – An orgy in Imperial Rome, by Henryk Siemiradzki

I do understand that many Muslims may be very angry when they look at the “modern world”, seeing the decadence of our western society. I can agree with them we may have returned to a decadent time, like we have seen at other periods in history. Those clashes of of deterioration or decline, as in morals or art; decay, moral  degeneration of a group of people, has come more than once in human history, always at the end of some ‘High culture’. But this does not allow their anger to be put into aggression against the western public. Using terror, torture and rape as a means to convert people to their religion is totally unacceptable and would not bring anything good to Islam either. We have seen that in Christendom, where in the past centuries many tried to bring the heathen populations to Christ but by forcing conversion on them allowed them to bring heathen uses or traditions into the Christian religion, making it less pure and bringing lots of umbilical doctrines to the Christian faith.

By wanting to push their faith onto others by force, the Islamic community is undergoing more damage than receiving good. It is also no help to the Islamic community that most Muslim teachers stay quiet or do not react openly against those false teachers in the Islamic world. Because of their silence, lots of people in the west start believing that those words and acts of those fundamentalists are really funded in the Koran (Quran). Lots of people start believing that what those fighters claim to be for the good cause of faith and based on the Quran, is really based on what is written in the Quran. But that is not so. Lots of things they do are forbidden by the Quran.

Quran, Jewish and Christian Holy Writings

Lots of Christians do not want  to see the relationship of major narratives recounted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Therefore it would not be bad to compare the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Arabic: الله‎, Allah) with the Book of books of Christianity. For that reason I wanted also to give some Islamic teacher the freedom to explain how the Muslims are interpreting the Quranic chapters (called suras) and its verses or ayahs. Though after months of patience nobody was willing to do that; which only gives me the choice to do it myself. To show Christians as well as Muslims where the Bible and Koran say the same or something different. I soon will start on Stepping Toes the comparison of both writings and what the Divine Creator, Allah the Most High God of gods wanted to have His creatures to hear, understand and to follow.

You shall be able to follow the comparison of the Islam Quranic verses with the Bible verses in the category Quran Quotes and in the category Bible Quotes.
I do hope more people shall be able to see where certain groups misuse the texts or give a totally different interpretation than the Holy Scriptures.

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Additional reading:

1. Politics and power first priority #2
2. The Advent of the saviour to Roman oppression
3. Egypt in the picture
4. Has the Bible’s Garden of Eden been found — and restored
5. Ember and light the ransomed of Jehovah
6. Prophets making excuses
7. Temperatures rising
8. WWW Updates Oct 2011
9. November 2011 Articles to read
10. This Week’s Developments in Weekly World Watch 15-21 July 2012
11. Mocking, Agitation and Religious Persecution
12. Syrian capital facing total destruction in the coming months
13. Mocking, Agitation and Religious Persecution
14. Migrants to the West #6
15. Weekly World Watch Dec 13th – 19th 09‏
16. Weekly World Watch 6th – 12th June 2010‏
17. Weekly World Watch 26th Sept – 9th Oct 2010‏
18. Russia supplying weapons to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime
19. Humanitarian crisis in Syria
20. Continues Syrian conflict needing not only dialogue
21. Angry at the greedy state
22. Turkey and Pictures for the times coming
23. Relieve the current humanitarian crisis in Syria
24. Reluctance to act in Syrian civil war
25. Did the White House Help Plan the Syrian Chemical Attack
26. NATO Convinced that the Syrian regime is responsible
27. How far does America wants to go to being a pessimist
28. Syria peace talks in doubt over ‘credible partners’
29. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
30. Syria peace talks in doubt over ‘credible partners’
31. Islamic State forcing the West to provide means for Kurdistan
32. Chemical warsite and Pushing king of the South
33. Serving those who served
34. Women their education and chances to become a parliamentary
35. UK forces EU to lift embargo on Syria rebel arms
36. Iraqi Underclass and animosities
37. Iraqi Christians flee homes amid Islamic militant rampage
38. ISIS, Mosul Dam and threatening lives of those who want to live in freedom
39. Abu Hamza is gone, but Britain is still a hotbed of radical hatred
40. Sharing a common security and a common set of values
41. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
42. Being Religious and Spiritual 1 Immateriality and Spiritual experience
43. How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
44. Internet absurdities
45. Faith related boycotts
46. Attackers silenced freedom of speech
47. Certain people trying to stem freedom of speech
48. Turkey a wolf in the sheep house of the European Union
49. Not many coming out with their community name
50. Different writers joined together
51. Christadelphian Samaritan Fund and donation to appeals by UNICEF
52. Anti-Semitic incidents in Australia in 2012 highest ever on record
53. Anti-Semitism ‘on the rise’ in Europe
54. Zionism occupier
55. American atheists most religiously literate Americans
56. Christian clergyman defiling book which did not belong to him
57. Christianity without the Trinity
58. The imaginational war against Christmas
59. The Immeasurable Grace bestowed on humanity
60. Not following the tradition of man
61. Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism

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Further articles of interest:

1. Iraq War: Prelude to War (The International Debate Over the Use and Effectiveness of Weapons Inspections)
2. Iraq War (Immediate Aftermath)
3. Persian Gulf Wars
4. Republic of Iraq
5. Republic of Iraq Al-Jumhuriyah al-‘Iraqiyah
6. Iraqi Americans
7. Fourth largest group of immigrants from the Arab world in the United States
8. Islamic Republic of Iran Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran
9. Syrian Arab Republic
10. Syrian Arab Republic, commonly known as Syria, is a Middle Eastern country located at the east end of the Mediterranean Sea
11. Islamic Republic of Pakistan Islami Jamhooria Pakistan
12. Education in Pakistan
13. Muslims: Beliefs and practices; Islamic civilisations, Sects of Islam; Muslims after September 11, 2001
14. Muslim: Ethnonyms: Mahommedan, Mohammedan, Moslem, Musulman
15. The Islamic conquest
16. Muslim a follower of the religion of Islam
17. Crusades, a species of holy war
18. Crusades: military campaigns sanctioned by the Latin Roman Catholic Church during the High Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages.
19. Decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith
20. Torture: integral part of medieval and early modern criminal procedure.
21. Definitions, Types, Psychological and Physical Effects of Torture
22. Torture, the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering in order to intimidate, coerce, obtain information or a confession, or punish

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Related articles

• Jihadi attacks foiled (deredactie.be)
  Over the past few months the security services have succeeded in foiling a number of Islamist terror attacks planned for Belgium. The attacks had been planned by former jihadi fighters that had returned from Syria and sympathiser of the fundamentalist terror group IS. News of that the attacks had been thwarted appears in Saturday’s edition of the financial daily ‘De Tijd’.
• Where Did the Islamic State Come From? (algemeiner.com)
  The simple answer – and the one you’ll hear most often – is that IS, or Islamic State (formerly ISIS) emerged out of al-Qaeda, gathering strength through the ongoing civil war in Syria and unrest in Iraq.But that’s only part of the story: the rest is based in Europe (and even in America), where governments have continually – if unwittingly – financed programs that breed radicalization in Muslim communities there. Now, more and more of those radical Muslims, most born and bred in the West, are joining IS and its jihad; and in their efforts to prevent it, Europe’s leaders in particular may in fact be strengthening the threat.
  +Last week, Dutch officials arrested two families from the town of Huizen as they prepared to join the jihad in Syria, confiscating the passports of all parents and their six children, aged eight months to nine years old. Around the same time, the Dutch-American radical known as Jermaine W successfully departed for Syria with his wife and children. Jermaine, whose father was American, is well known in the Netherlands as a member of Holland’s extremist Hofstadgroep, and as a friend of Hofstadgroep leader Mohammed Bouyeri, the terrorist killer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Jermaine was arrested in 2004 for a letter in which he outlined plans to murder activist and then-Parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but was released in 2006 on the basis of “insufficient evidence.”Many of these European jihadists, like Jermaine, travel with their children, whom they then place in jihadist training camps in the hopes of producing a new, stronger generation of Islamic warriors for the Islamic State. Recent reporting from VICE shows a Belgian father coaching his very young son to kill “unbelievers,” while other children play and train with rifles.
• Why So Many Jihadists Come From Belgium (businessinsider.com)
  More than a thousand fighters from Western countries have joined the conflict in Iraq and Syria, with the most per-capita coming from Belgium, according to an analysis by Business Insider.Between 250 and 400 jihadists in the area are thought to have come from the small European nation, which has a population of 11 million.Although the trend may seem surprising from a highly developed state known for waffles and EU bureaucracy, a closer look at Belgium’s fractured society shows this may have been a long time coming.
• Members Of Belgian Islamist Group Arrested, Accused Of Torturing And Beheading Non-Muslims (midnightwatcher.wordpress.com)
  Sharia4Belgium-leader Fouad Belkacem (also named Abu Imran) from Boom is back behind bars. In addition; two brothers from Vilvoorde and a man from Berchem are locked. ‘The group was supposed to be dissolved, but that’s not true,’ said Eric Van Der Sypt, spokesman for the federal prosecutor. ‘They actively recruit street youth, indoctrinate them, give them combat training and organizing violent actions in Syria and in our country. ‘Sharia4Belgium’ sent the youngest 33 radicalized Muslims from Vilvoorde and Antwerp to Syria.’ From overheard stories of warriors who have returned, that they were incorporated into fighters groups linked to Al Qaeda. ‘They took part in jihadist and Salafist terrorist activities.
• ‘I’d Like to Join ISIS and Kill with Them’: Children Volunteer for Jihad (globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com)
  VICE has taken another look at the inner workings of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), this time focusing on the effective and disturbing way that the radical Islamists recruit one particular group: children.
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  An ISIS preacher known as Abdullah the Belgian brought his son to the territory controlled by ISIS from Belgium; he quizzed the boy about why ISIS fights.

  “Why do we kill the infidels?” he asks the boy. “What have the infidels done?”

  “They kill Muslims,” his young son responds. “The infidels of Europe, all the infidels.”
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  Update: The Engineered Destruction and Political Fragmentation of Iraq. Towards the Creation of a US Sponsored Islamist Caliphate

  We are dealing with a diabolical military agenda whereby the United States is targeting a rebel army which is directly funded by the US and its allies. The incursion into Iraq of the Islamic State rebels in late June was part of a carefully planned intelligence operation.

  The rebels of the Islamic state, formerly known as the ISIS, were covertly supported by US-NATO-Israel  to wage a terrorist insurgency against the Syrian government of Bashar Al Assad.  The atrocities committed in Iraq are similar to those committed in Syria. The sponsors of IS including Barack Obama have blood on their hands.

  The killings of innocent civilians by the Islamic state terrorists create a pretext and the justification for US military intervention on humanitarian grounds. Lest we forget, the rebels who committed these atrocities and who are a target of US military action are supported by the United States.

  The bombing raids ordered by Obama are not intended to eliminate the terrorists. Quite the opposite, the US is targeting the civilian population as well as the Iraqi resistance movement.
• Jihadis planned attack on the European Commission (deredactie.be)
  The Dutch public broadcaster NOS reports that two people were detained early last month on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack on the European Commission in Brussels. The Belgian Judicial Authorities are now looking for a number of other jihadi that were also involved in the terrorist attack plot.