Profiles of Three Major Belgian Fighters in Syria and Their Paths to Jihad

Profiles of Three Major Belgian Fighters in Syria and Their Paths to Jihad

Much has been written already about the stunning number of Belgian fighters in Syria and Iraq. With estimates ranging from 380 to nearly 500 individuals, Belgium has the highest per capita figure of all Western countries. The average Belgian fighter is a 25-year-old man of Moroccan descent who was born in Belgium. However, there is little homogeneity, as can be seen through profiles of some of the Belgian fighters: Houssien Elouassaki was a very young Belgian Moroccan who became an amir in Syria almost immediately upon his arrival and was killed in August 2013; Nacer Mehentel, is a baker of Algerian descent who brought his wife and three children with him; Bassam Ayachi is a veteran of Islamic extremism in Belgium who, once he arrived in Syria ended up on a much more moderate side of the jihad than many of his former admirers.

According to the latest official statistics, 380 foreign fighters have already departed from Belgium or have tried to reach the Syrian-Iraqi battlefield. Out of a total population of 11 million people, that is almost 34 fighters per million. In Western Europe, only Sweden (30.6) and Denmark (26.3) come close. [1] The most recent estimate by independent Belgian researcher Pieter Van Ostaeyen puts the number of Belgians who have departed the country for the Syrian-Iraqi battlefield at 496, at least 60 of whom have died (the official number of fighters who have returned to Belgium is about 120) (Pieter Van Ostaeyen, July 15). The rapid growth of Shariah4Belgium, a radical Muslim organization founded in Antwerp in 2010—and the fact that its danger was underestimated for far too long—explain why Belgium has become a major exporter of fighters to the Syrian jihad (Terrorism Monitor, May 29).

Houssien Elouassaki: The Youngest Amir in the World

“He is the youngest amir in the world,” Abdelouafi Elouassaki boasted to his girlfriend about his brother Houssien during a phone call that was captured by the Belgian security services in January 2013. [2] Four months earlier, Houssien had left for the jihad in Syria as one the first members of Shariah4Belgium to do so.

Houssien joined the Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen militia that was founded by the Syrian brothers Amr and Firas al-Absi (a.k.a. Abu Mohamed and Abu Aseer). Initially, their group consisted mainly of Arabs, but a separate chapter for European fighters was soon established. At the end of February 2013, the European chapter of Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen had grown to 70 fighters, mainly from Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Houssien—who was only 21-years-old at that time—became the amir of those muhajireen (emigrants—a word that is often used for fighters from non-Arabic countries). Although Houssien had to obey the orders of Amr al-Absi (Firas was killed around the time of Houssien’s arrival), he had considerable power himself. According to a Belgian fighter interrogated after returning, Houssien decided on his own which of the volunteers waiting in Europe could join.

The fact that he was chosen as amir despite his very young age is considered unusual, even by those who knew Houssien. In an intercepted call between Houssien’s girlfriend and the girlfriend of his younger brother Hakim, the latter speculated: “Maybe they made him the leader because he was the first to arrive.” Houssien’s girlfriend responded: “Yes, I think so. It must be that.” [3]

Houssien certainly had the charisma to be a leader. Back home, he was one of the very first members that Shariah4Belgium recruited in Vilvoorde, an industrial town just outside Brussels. He frequently visited demonstrations and was often spotted at the organization’s headquarters in Antwerp. In June 2012, Houssien was arrested during a violent protest against the so-called mistreatment by the police of a woman wearing a burqa. He stayed in jail for more than a month. [4] His imprisonment made him so popular that after his release, he easily expanded the Brussels/Vilvoorde chapter of Shariah4Belgium into several hundred followers.

How Houssien came into contact with the al-Absi brothers is unknown. According to his older brother Abdelouafi, it just happened by chance: “He did not know anyone there, he simply left home. It was Allah who brought him to the right people.” [5] It is much more probable though, that the arrangements were made with the help of the British-Lebanese cleric Omar Bakri. One of Shariah4Belgium’s men, Nabil Kasmi, kept in close contact with him, and according to Lebanese court documents, Kasmi assisted Bakri with the facilitation of foreign fighters for the Syrian war. [6]

In those early days, Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen fought together with Jabhat al-Nusra (the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda), Ahrar al-Sham and the Free Syrian Army. Reportedly, it was the latter that assigned the militia to a villa in Kafr Hamra, on the outskirts of Aleppo. Majlis’ leader Amr al-Absi has often been named as one of the founders of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS—now the Islamic State), and later, he became a senior leader in the terrorist group (al-Akhbar, January 14, 2014). However, when the infighting between ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra erupted, Houssien sided with the latter, supposedly over a personal conflict with al-Absi.

It certainly was not revulsion for the Islamic State’s cruelties that made Houssien leave. On the phone with his brother Abdelouafi, he sounded quite at ease about atrocities:

Houssien was killed in August 2013. The circumstances of his death are unclear. According to a well-known Belgian fighter who cooperated with the police after his return, Houssien was shot in the head while doing ribaat (keeping watch). [8] A picture of his dead body was shown in a YouTube video honoring him. It contained footage that never was published before, in which Houssien said:

Nacer Mehentel: The Preacher in His Campervan

When he appeared last year in the VICE News documentary “Grooming Children for Jihad,” no one in Belgium seemed to know the man who called himself “Abu Abdelah al-Belgiki.” He was filmed in front of a Fiat campervan plastered with religious messages and distributing leaflets praising the Islamic State. It caused a shockwave to see that the man had traveled to Syria with his young son; on air, he instigated the child to talk about his dream of killing infidels “because they are killing Muslims.” Al-Belgiki himself burst into tears while he ranted about the West:

Even the Belgian security services had no clue who the father and son in the documentary really were, but in Raqqa, the Syrian capital of the Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate, Abu Abdelah al-Belgiki looked like a celebrity. He was dragged into the documentary by two members of the Islamic State media team, telling him over the phone that they were filming next to a bridge on the Euphrates River: “Why don’t you join us with your preaching car?” (VICE News, August 13, 2014).

Soon after the images went around the world, a teacher from Brussels informed the police that she recognized the son (La Capitale, August 17, 2014). The boy was one of her former pupils at Joseph Delclef elementary school in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, one of the most impoverished municipalities of the Belgian capital. Neighbors confirmed that the father is Nacer Mehentel—a man with Algerian roots, but born in France—and the boy is his stepson, Abdelah.

In 2009, Mehentel moved from Lyon to Belgium, where he ran a bakery until early last year (Nieuwsblad, August 16, 2014). He was also active in the field of plus size clothing for women according to company registers. He lived in Brussels with his Algerian-born wife, Samia Kassah, and her three children from at least one previous relationship—Abdelah and his two sisters El Khanssa and Naila. [10]

After his appearance in the VICE News documentary, nothing more has been heard about Mehentel. It is still unclear why he decided to travel to Syria and if he did so as a member of any network. It is certain though, that his wife and her three children have joined him—they all were mentioned in a confidential document of the Belgian authorities, stating that the couple and their adult daughter (El Khanssa) will be stripped of their legal right of residence in Belgium. [11]

Bassam Ayachi: The Shaykh Who Turned Against the Islamic State

The oldest Belgian fighter in Syria is also the most notorious. For more than two decades, 69-year-old Syrian native Bassam Ayachi was considered Belgium’s axis of Islamic extremism. Although his name was mentioned in almost every Belgian case of terrorism, he was never been convicted on that charge. Once he returned to his homeland, he landed on a different side from many of his admirers by saying that Syrians do not need all of these fighters from abroad.

Ayachi moved to Belgium in the 1990s after the restaurant that he owned in the French town of Aix-en-Provence went bankrupt (La Dernière Heure [Brussels], January 27, 2006). In Molenbeek, a municipality within the capital Brussels, he established the “Centre islamique belge” (Belgian Islamic Center) and soon became known as a “shaykh.” This center became one of the first recruitment spots for the foreign jihad. In 1997, Belgian police arrested him on suspicion of support for jihad in Bosnia. [12] Four years later, in 2001, the murderers of the Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud—the Taliban’s archenemy—were members of Ayachi’s entourage (CNN, May 15, 2009). In 2006, Ayachi’s own cousin by marriage, Fathi Somrani, died in Iraq—reportedly in a suicide attack. [13]

However, early in 2013, when the first reports of Belgian fighters in the Syrian war began to emerge, Ayachi denounced their recruitment: “You should not ask a Belgian youngster raised with French fries and mayonnaise to get himself massacred there. The Syrians have enough fighters themselves” (La Dernière Heure [Brussels], April 11, 2013). Despite these words, he did send his oldest son Abdel Rahman—the second of 12 children—to Syria. Abdel Rahman was killed in June 2013 as a commander of Suqour al-Sham (Falcons of the Levant), a militia fighting in the governorate of Idlib.

In December of that same year, Bassam Ayachi returned to Syria, and despite his earlier comments about foreign fighters, he was joined by at least eight Belgians, including his longtime assistant, the Congolese-born Olivier Dassy (a.k.a. Hamza Talha). [14] At the time that he arrived, the Suqour al-Sham militia was already integrated into the Islamic Front, a coalition of so-called moderate Islamist groups. It regularly sided with Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, with which it worked to establish Shari’a courts. Ayachi was appointed as judge for the court in the town of Armanaz (La Libre Belgique, June 12).

Ayachi’s relationship with the Islamic State is more than simply rhetorically hostile: In February of this year, Ayachi lost an arm when his car was hit by a bomb. He did not hesitate to blame the Islamic State: “They have tried to kill me before” (La Libre Belgique, June 12). And while the European contingent of Islamic State fighters is full of former Ayachi admirers, a French speaking Islamic State supporter reacted on Twitter: “The apostate Bassam Ayachi has lost an arm. May Allah let him lose his head the next time.” [15]

Conclusion

While more than 80 percent of the Belgian fighters in the Syrian-Iraqi war were born in Belgium (a number have Moroccan roots) and most of them are in their 20s, there is a lot of diversity in their ranks as evidenced by these three individuals (Terrorism Monitor, May 29). Houssien Elouassaki, 21, fit the average profile quite well, but stood out by being appointed as an amir soon after he joined a radical Syrian militia. Nacer Mehentel, 58, lived in Belgium for several years, but was born in France with Algerian roots; he was not known by security services when he left for Syrian with his Algerian wife and her three children. Bassam Ayachi, 69, a Syrian-born shaykh who was very well known as a Muslim extremist already suspected 18-years-ago of recruiting for the jihad, condemned the flow of European fighters and became an adversary of the Islamic State after returning to Syria. The Islamic State apparently attracts the largest number of Belgians, but their affiliations are also diverse: of the three individuals, only Mehentel is an Islamic State member while Elouassaki died within the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra and Ayachi joined Suquor al-Sham (Pieter Van Ostaeyen, July 15). Although the number of Belgians leaving for Syria seems to have decreased, with a current average of two per week, the problem will certainly continue for quite some time (Nieuwsblad, July 17).

Guy Van Vlierden is a journalist for the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. He specializes in issues relating to terrorist and extremism and also covers these issues in English on his personal blog emmejihad.wordpress.com.

Notes

1. According to figures compiled by the website https://thecountofemmejihad.wordpress.com/.

2. Belgian court documents in the author’s possession.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. These documents are not publicly available, but in the author’s possession.

7. Op. Cit. Belgian court documents.

8. Ibid.

9. This video, which is very graphic, can be viewed here: https://emmejihad.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=622.

10. The source for family details is a confidential document of the Belgian government in the author’s possession.

11. Op. Cit. Belgian court documents.

12. The source for Ayachi’s 1997 arrest is an Italian court document in the author’s possession.

13. Ibid.

14. Information about Belgian fighters joining Ayachi is based on the author’s monitoring of social media.

15. URL was https://twitter.com/oussabuabdillah/status/569912283121524738, but the account isn’t publicly available anymore. Screenshot in the author’s possession.