Belgium: Details of Foiled Antwerp Terrorist Plot, Network Released Report by Mark Eeckhaut: "Abu_Mushab_Afghani, the Terrorist from Sint-Jansplein: The True Story Behind the Major Anti-Terror Operation in the Heart of Antwerp" De Standaard Online Tuesday, April 5, 2011 T12:39:59Z
Antwerp resident Hassan H., 29, dreamed out loud of staging an attack in his own city that would claim more lives than the attacks in Madrid. He even found a Saudi extremist who was willing to finance the attack. But his careless talk on the Internet was his undoing. It was Friday, 1 January 2010, New Year's Day, when the Brussels federal police received an alarming report that originated in a foreign country. The report arrived by way of a foreign police agency that the Belgian investigators declined to name in their official report. But according to well-placed sources, it was an American agency. Two days earlier, on 29 December, that police agency had intercepted a written conversation in Arabic between two persons in a chat room of the extremist organization Ansar Al-Mujahideen. The two people used the nicknames Swat Wazerstan and Abu--Musab--Afghani. The content of the message, which is reproduced below, left little to the imagination. Swat Wazerstan and Abu--Musab--Afghani talked at length about plans for and the execution of a terrorist attack. Moreover, the Americans informed our authorities, Abu--Musab--Afghani was chatting from our country, from Antwerp to be specific. The police and federal prosecutors immediately launched an investigation. Terrorism experts with the Antwerp federal police discovered that Abu--Musab--Afghani chatted from an address on Antwerp's Sint-Jansplein, near the center of the city. That too was not exactly a comforting thought, because that particular address was and is the residence of the notorious H. family, of which security services knew that four of the five brothers sympathized with extreme Islam. But then which of the brothers was Abu--Musab--Afghani? In the chat sessions, he described himself as a man with a beard. "When I sit on the train, everyone stays clear of me. As soon as they see a beard and an Afghan turban." The investigators knew that Abdelgabar H., 32, one of the four brothers, had a beard. They were quite familiar with him. Abdelgabar was very active in the non-profit organization Rissala, which has its headquarters at the radical Omar Mosque in Antwerp-North. With Rissala, he once organized a nighttime orienteering event in Agimont in the Ardennes, which was depicted to the young men attending as preparation for jihad. But in the end it was found that Abdelgabar -- who is now in prison in Morocco in connection with another terrorism investigation -- had nothing whatsoever to do with Abu--Musab--Afghani. The second brother with a beard, Hassan H., proved to be the right one. A bit strangely, the investigators thought, because Hassan H. had never been held in high regard by his friends in Antwerp. Even by his own family. Anyone who knows him on and around Sint-Jansplein in Antwerp, where the family lives, describes him as "a constant chatterbox," "a bit loony," or even flat out as "whacko with a long beard." And an oddball who was avoided by most people. Thus, Hassan H. is -- to put it mildly -- not too bright, and in real life no one takes him seriously. But on the Internet, Hassan H. was indeed someone. In the forum of the extremist jihad site Ansar Al-Mujahideen, where he spent much time chatting, he even enjoyed great respect for the way in which he glorified Holy War and exhibited his open desire to die a martyr's death. Ansar Al-Mujahideen is not just any website. Jihad sympathizers from all over the world make contact there. Among other things, they can read the writings of prominent Salafi scholars there. The site contains tons of extremist propaganda, in addition to clips of the struggle in areas where Holy War is being waged. Extremists can also find manuals for how to make bombs. Regular visitors can communicate with each other in public chat rooms such as "Minbarr Al Ansar" and, if they do not want anyone looking over their shoulder, also in so-called private rooms. After he had been active on the site for a while, Abu--Musab--Afghani was invited into a private chat room by one Swat Wazerstan, a Palestinian living in Saudi Arabia. And according to a report by the Spanish Guardia Civil that is part of the Belgian court file, that same Swat Wazerstan is a top figure with Ansar Al-Mujahideen. At the top of the organization -- also according to the Guardia Civil investigators -- is the ideologue Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. He is assisted in his work by a number of committees, each with a specific task. According to Guardia Civil, Swat Wazerstan uses the Internet to secure financing for terrorist cells, and he also secures funding for fighters who leave for "jihad areas," including Afghanistan and Chechnya. The Antwerp investigators gulped. This meant that "whacko" Hassan of Sint-Jansplein had Internet contact with a top figure in that organization. A man who moreover proposed financing an attack with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades "that would claim more lives than Madrid." (On 11 March 2004, 191 persons were killed in an attack on a number of trains in Madrid carried out by Muslim extremists.) It was a frightening thought for the investigators. Because a whacko with a machine gun and a few hand grenades is enough to cause a bloodbath. What alarmed the investigators even more was that during the chats Hassan H. had mentioned a Kurdish arms merchant in Antwerp from whom he could buy the Kalashnikovs. It turns out that that man did exist, and he was indeed active in the arms trade. The Kurd also turned out to be a friend of Azmani H., another of Hassan's brothers. It was determined later that Azmani is not an extremist and had nothing to do with the planned attack, but he is indeed known to the police for his contacts in the arms trade. On 22 April 2010, the police even intercepted a phone conversation between Azmani and a potential client in which Azmani spoke of the sale of a "weapon with which you can disarm a tank." The judicial investigation continued at full speed for months: Cell phones were tapped, computers were hacked, and Hassan H.'s contacts were shadowed. On 1 April 2010, Swat Wazerstan was arrested in Saudi Arabia on suspicion of terrorism. With that arrest, the risk of an attack in our country was also immediately eliminated. Hassan did not get his money, and he also no longer received instructions. He was adrift, and without guidance from above he quickly ceased to be a threat. Hassan was not happy about the sudden disappearance of his chat mate. "Nothing is going to work out. I'll end up dying here. I think it's a shame that Swat has gone away, because otherwise I simply would have done it here," he said on 2 May 2010 in a tapped phone conversation. During that conversation, he complained that he had never managed to go fight in Chechnya or Afghanistan for the good cause. After Swat's disappearance, Hassan H. did do everything he could to find a network that might send him to a country where the Holy War was being fought. But he did not know that the investigators were able to track every step he took. And it was by way of Hassan H.'s phone that the investigators then got back on the trail of an entire group of extremists in Antwerp who wanted to go fight in Chechnya. They included three young militants from Sharia4Belgium, Said M., Youssef K., and Jamal E. The Chechen Isa A., whom they had met at the Bangladeshi Mosque on Turnhoutsebaan, wanted to help them get to Chechnya and wage the Holy War there. But last November, the court decided that it had enough evidence against the group. Hassan H. and 12 others, including Isa A., were apprehended in a large-scale operation. Eleven of them are still in jail today awaiting trial. (Description of Source: Groot Bijgaarden De Standaard Online in Dutch -- Website of right-of-center daily; URL: http://www.standaard.be) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [email protected]. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [email protected] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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