How Belgium Became a Top Exporter of Jihad
Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 11
May 29, 2015 02:23 PM Age: 1 hour
By: Guy Van Vlierden
Belgium has in recent years produced some of the largest numbers of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, both in absolute and relative terms of any European country. This article aims to take a critical look at the numbers of Belgian fighters active with the Islamic State and other militant groups in Iraq and Syria, and explain why and how Belgium has become a leading exporter of jihadist fighters.
Number of Fighters
The Belgian government’s latest estimate of the number of Belgian fighters in the Syrian-Iraqi conflict is about 380 (HLN, April 7). However, independent research by the Belgian historian and Arabist Pieter Van Ostaeyen and this author found that 482 people are known to have at least departed to the conflict, including those who were stopped before they reached their goal, were killed or who have since returned. This includes some people within the ranks of moderate rebel and even pro-regime groups—both in Syria and Iraq—but most of these fighters can nonetheless be considered as jihadists who sought to join Sunni Islamist militant groups. Most of the Belgians, perhaps 70 percent by mid-2014, appear to have joined the Islamic State, the most prominent extremist force in Iraq and Syria. [1] However, affiliations have often changed with time. For instance, many Belgian fighters in Syria, before summer 2013, initially joined the then independent militia Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen. When this became part of the Islamic State, many switched to Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, before gradually switching back to the Islamic State.
The difference between the official count and independent estimates—which is not unique to the Belgian figures—is probably because governments tend to limit their data to juridically sound cases, while independent research relies more heavily on social media. On the one hand, using social media can lead to overestimating numbers. For instance, in the first months of the Syrian civil war, many people put Syrian cities as their place of residence on their Facebook accounts, but these later turned out to be mere rhetorical expression of support. On the other hand, some Belgian foreign fighters were only known once their deaths were announced. For example, when two Belgians recently died in suicide attacks—“Abu Abdallah al-Belgiki,” who died on April 24 near the Iraqi-Jordanian border, and “Abu Bakr al-Belgiki,” on March 11 near Ramadi in Iraq—they had no prior publicly available social media footprint (Twitter, March 11).
However, even allowing for such discrepancies, a total number of nearly 500 Belgians who have joined—or tried to join—the Syrian jihad seems plausible. Even the Belgian government’s lower estimate of 380 would give Belgium the largest number of jihadists per capita, with 33.9 fighters per one million inhabitants. In Western Europe, only Sweden (30.6) and Denmark (26.3) come close to that, and only when calculated at their highest estimates. High end estimates for Germany (22.3) and France (18.1) show far fewer relative numbers of jihadists, and only high end estimates of 2,000 fighters for the UK (31.0) result in a comparable rate (Daily Telegraph, November 24, 2014). [2] Strikingly, on the entire European continent, Belgium’s number of foreign fighters per capita is only surpassed by two Muslim-majority Balkan states, both of which have a recent history of war and related jihadist activity: Bosnia and Herzegovina with 87.2 fighters per million inhabitants, and Kosovo with a stunning 157.9.
Underlining the high levels of sympathy for jihadist groups, in an Italian study of two million posts on Twitter and Facebook, the only countries showing a higher proportional level of popular online support for the Islamic State than Belgium were Qatar and Pakistan (Guardian, November 28, 2014).
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