“Brussels commune ‘fundamentalist recruiting ground’ says journalist,” from Expatica, with thanks to jabbathetutt and RB:
Hind Fraihi, a Flemish-Moroccan freelancer, spent two months living in Molenbeek, which has a large North African population….
Fraihi claims to have spoken to dozens of young Muslims who have been offered arms training in Afghanistan to join Islamic extremist ranks….
Gunther Vanpraet, the managing editor of the two newspapers, said Fraihi had wanted to see “if the rumours about an increase in the number of Muslim extremists in Belgium were true.”
Vanpraet said hundreds of young adults had been studying Islam for years.
“They are future Muslim leaders,” he said.
“Alongside them is a significant group of young people who have very little hope of a normal future in our country because of their lack of training and because of the job market. This is a breeding ground for thousands of Jihad candidates who are ready to commit terrorist attacks and to lead the religious war against the infidels.”
All right. Give them job training and good jobs thereafter. Then see if all of them will really turn away from the jihad ideology and the desire to see Sharia in Belgium. The many studies that have shown that jihadists are generally well educated and relatively prosperous indicate that she might be surprised by the outcome.
Vanpraet said these extremists were using Belgium as a base for planning terrorism, rather than as a target.
Fraihi found extremist Jihad writings in several Molenbeek libraries and said such documents were also in frequent circulation in the commune.
“The majority of the mosques which circulate these dangerous documents
operate in the greatest secrecy and are difficult for the security services to infiltrate,” she wrote…
Ms. Fraihi is obviously not a Jihad Watch reader. I doubt, for example, that she has heard of the Freedom House report.