Perfidious Belgium

Spectator, The, Jul 13, 2002 by Belien, Paul

Watch out, Britain, says Paul Belien: Belgium has become a major recruiting base for al-Qaeda

Brussels

NEVER trust a person with a Belgian passport. As everyone knows, there are no Belgians. There are six million Flemings and four million Walloons, lumped together through historical accident in the Kingdom of Belgium, an entirely artificial state which no one likes apart from the Belgian royal family whose livelihood depends on it. Like the European superstate now in the making, artificial states do not appeal to patriotic feelings. And this is the reason why one should mistrust Belgians: their bogus state has corrupted them, in the same way that the European Union corrupts its dependents.

A second reason to distrust Belgian citizens is that they may be dangerous. Flemings and Walloons have for decades been fighting over Brussels. The Frenchspeaking Walloons have dominated Belgium since its invention in 1830. Today, they feel threatened by the growing demographic and economic power of the Dutch-speaking Flemings. In their search for allies, the Walloon leadership is bestowing Belgian citizenship on almost any immigrant entering the country, including criminals and Muslim terrorists, who claims he can speak French.

According to a recent inquiry ordered by a Belgian parliamentary commission, Brussels has become a major recruiting base for al-Qa'eda and a launch-pad for terrorist attacks on neighbouring countries. The commission investigated the failure of the Siret6 de l'Etat, the Belgian secret service, to screen Islamic terrorists. On 5 June, Mrs Godelieve Timmermans, the head of the Surete, resigned after the report concluded that the Surete had remained passive because it had found no indications that the terrorists would attack Belgian targets, and also because the Surete did not want to discredit certain corrupt Belgian authorities or politicians for fear that these might attribute to the secret service 'a racist or xenophobic attitude towards immigrants or Muslims'.

The investigation followed the murder of the Afghan general Ahmad Shah Massoud. The charismatic leader of the anti-- Taleban forces in Afghanistan was killed by a Belgian and an accomplice carrying Belgian papers on 9 September 2001, two days before the attacks by al-Qa'eda terrorists on New York and the Pentagon. The murder, intended to be 'a gift' to Osama bin Laden, had been planned by Tarek Maaroufi, a Tunisian-born Belgian citizen and one of the leading al-Qa'eda agents in Europe.

Twice, in 1992 and 1996, the Tunisian government asked the Belgian government to extradite Maaroufi because Tunis suspected him of being a member of a Tunisian terror group. As Maaroufi had become a Belgian citizen, Brussels turned both requests down. Maaroufi was also a member of the Algerian terror group GIA. In March 1995, when the Belgian authorities arrested 12 GIA members suspected of planning terror assaults in Europe, Maaroufi was one of them. However, the 12 were all set free. The unwillingness of the Belgian authorities to imprison effectively some of the most dangerous terrorists prompted Charles Pasqua, the then French interior minister, to criticise Belgium for its lack of resolve in the fight against international Islamic terrorism. France had been a main target of GIA attacks, including the bombing of the Saint-Michel Metro station in Paris on 25 July 1995, which killed seven people and wounded 117.

The Belgian government had made a deal with the GIA terrorists, agreeing to turn a blind eye to conspiracies hatched on Belgian soil in exchange for immunity from attack. In a GIA statement, addressing the Belgian King Albert II but posted to the French embassy in Brussels in June 1999, the Algerian terror movement explicitly referred to such a deal. Because of its 'neutralist' position, Belgium became known as a safe haven for terrorists. Britain had already experienced this in November 1988, when Belgium set free Patrick Ryan, an IRA arms-supplier who had been arrested in Brussels and who the British government had asked to be extradited to London. Although a Belgian court recommended that the government comply with Britain's request, the Belgian Cabinet gave orders to let him go.

In January 2001, the CIA discovered an al-Qa'eda plot to bomb the US embassy in Rome. During the investigation into the plot, the Italian anti-terror squad, Digos, rounded up an al-Qa'eda cell in Milan. The Milanese cell had been in regular contact with Maaroufi, who with his Belgian identity card could travel freely throughout the countries of the Schengen group. The Italian authorities asked Belgium to arrest and extradite Maaroufi. Again, Brussels refused, arguing that it did not extradite Belgian citizens. Meanwhile, Maaroufi was organising the murder of General Massoud. He recruited two men who were prepared to blow themselves up together with the general. One of them was a Belgian citizen of Tunisian descent who was a Koran teacher in Brussels; the other was a North African living in Belgium illegally.