An update on this story. Regarding the article's title below, it seems quite safe to remove Malika El-Aroud from category of "alleged extremist" at this point. She's made her feelings pretty clear.
"6 alleged Islamic extremists charged in Belgium," by Raf Casert for the Associated Press, December 12:
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — Authorities on Friday arrested the Belgian widow of a man involved in killing an anti-Taliban warlord, saying she was part of an al-Qaida group that was about to launch a suicide attack.
Malika El Aroud, 49, was charged with belonging to a terrorist organization. Five men in their 20s were also charged; eight others were released for lack of evidence
El Aroud, dressed in black from head to toe, was pushed into a police car during a night raid early Thursday a few miles away from, and a few hours before, a summit of European Union government leaders was scheduled to open.
Authorities said she was too dangerous to walk the streets and even considered calling off the summit.
"It was considered as a possibility," said Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme at summit headquarters. In the end, the gathering went smoothly. Authorities said they cannot say whether an attack was planned in Brussels or elsewhere.
The arrest added to the aura of El Aroud, who is known for using the Internet to support radical causes.
"She is a beacon and a catalyzer in the radical movement, and she is very smart in using it," said Brice De Ruyver, a Ghent University professor and former government security adviser.
"Our freedom of expression has always given her a safe conduct to use the Internet and attract vulnerable youths," De Ruyver said. One of the five men charged was said to be on the verge of carrying out a suicide attack.
Repeated phone calls to the office of her lawyer went unanswered.
El Aroud has figured in almost every major Belgian terror probe since 2001, investigators say. An official in the Federal Prosecutor's Office said she frequently switched laptops and wireless Internet services to evade investigators. The official, who has knowledge of years of investigations into El Aroud, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Last year, she was detained in a pre-Christmas anti-terrorism sweep, and authorities were convinced they had averted a terrorist attack.
Cue the violins:
El Aroud has had a tumultuous life. As a child, she moved from her native Tangiers in Morocco to Belgium, where an unhappy youth led to failed relationships before she discovered fundamentalist Islam.
She and her husband, Abdessatar Dahmane, went to Afghanistan, where he was killed during the assassination of anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
Turned into the widow of a martyr, El Aroud returned to Belgium, where, experts say, she since has been involved in radical networks in Belgium and Switzerland.
Investigators suspect her current husband, Moez Garsalloui, is now an important link of El Aroud's group in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But Claude Moniquet, the president of the Brussels-based think tank European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, said he believes any attack would probably have targeted Europe rather than Afghanistan.
"Some of the terrorists who were arrested were just back from that country after they had received training; they would not go there anymore," he said.
"It is unlikely from a strategic standpoint that a new attack in Afghanistan would change much. In Europe, however, the impact would have been huge."
"She and her husband, Abdessatar Dahmane, went to Afghanistan, where he was killed during the assassination of anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States."
Indeed, the SOB was killed while assassinating Ahmed Shah Massoud.
WTF is wrong with these journo's nowadays? Are they too dumb to string 2 sentences together or are the somehow obliged to omit the essential story?
Unhappy, maladjusted, malcontent loser turns to mindless destructive cult. Achieves phony sense of self worth by destroying better people's lives.
Ummm ... we've seen this sort of thing before.
And it's worth bearing two things in mind:
1) Life imprisonment is expensive
2) The prisons have become jihaddi recruiting centers (mostly because the authorities refuse to recognize that we are at war)
You do the math.
The moment Malika el-Aroud's sentence comes down, her Belgian citizenship should cease to exist.
In the absence of a death penalty: exile her, permanently, from Dar al Harb.
Don't waste money by putting her in a Belgian prison where all she'll do is recruit more people for Jihad.
Send her back to Tangiers, sans papers, sans any and all assets: after giving her full description and details to Interpol and to every non-Muslim country worldwide with instructions 'Do Not Let Her In'.
After that, she's the King of Morocco's problem.
It's way too early for me to be up posting snark at this hour, but at first glance, the headline read, "Belgium: Five accursed jihadists and obvious jihad propagandist charged...oh well, a day of laundry and cleaning awaits. Good Mawnin' all!
Authorities said she was too dangerous to walk the streets and even considered calling off the summit.
what did they not stop women in full burqas in Belgiuim, will it take a sucide bombing to inforce this. and WTF is she still in Belgium, send the cow over to her fatherland pronto!
"She is a beacon and a catalyzer in the radical movement, and she is very smart in using it," said Brice De Ruyver, a Ghent University professor and former government security adviser.
"Our freedom of expression has always given her a safe conduct to use the Internet and attract vulnerable youths," -- from AP article above
Is "radical youth" the latest euphemism for jihadist? What are they, Communist or Greens? ;)
There should be law requiring people to be able to do pre-algrebra before they go online. That would keep jihadis off the Internet.
How do they really know they have the right woman? Fingerprints? DNA? Please don't tell me they used mugshots! I couldn't recognize my own mother in one of those birdcage covers.
Posted by: Noman at December 13, 2008 8:49 AM
Hi Noman, I saw your nic and thought of clever Ulysses:
"Noman!" screamed the Cyclops. "Noman has put out my eye!"
The monster Cyclops - a fitting metaphor for the monstrous mass-murdering Mohammedans.
The Belgian police knows her with the veil. There are policemen following her everywhere all the time so they are quite familiar with her walk, gestures, and besides they know where she lives. The Swiss police, on the other hand, apparently were not sure when a few years ago they surprised her early in the morning while she was still in bed - unveiled.
Malika El Aroud is a good Mohammadan doing what good Mohammadans do. Furthering the 'causes' of Allah.
She must be a little disappointed that Allah failed to protect her, and was apparently 'willing' to have her arrested.
But you know Allah, he works in strange and mysterious ways, mostly strange and mysterious.
She should not take Allah's delivering her to kufrs personally, it is probably part of a larger plan.
Allah willing...and He always is...
They found her through her IP address. They had probably been surveiling her for months.
There Malika El Aroud sits in her 3 room flat living on unemployment,. She is contradiction to what she was at another time, she now refers to herself as a female warrior for AlQaeda even though Osama Bin Laden has in the past refused to accept female warriors into his band of terrorists.
She and her 2nd husband have been arrested before over operating jihadist websites. They where both convicted in Switzerland but she was given probation almost immediately. So there she sits expressing hate for the Western country she lives in while living on the dole of the tax payers of Belgian. She says she would never make a bomb, while at the same time saying that her writing is her bomb.She has known for along time that she is being watched but is defiant to the end in her hate of the west. She has insisted she is not breaking any laws, but if she goes to prison she insists that will be great because they will make me a living martyr.