Belgian prosecutors say four people have been charged with participating in the activities of a terrorist organization, including by funding it and recruiting people to fight with the Islamic State group in Syria.
Over two years ago, the Islamic State began its overseas operations of recruiting, training and sending jihadis to Western Europe and North America. They have been able to move more or less freely in and out of Western countries. According to counter-terrorism officials, there are now “mature, clandestine networks” which are “increasingly responding to calls to accelerate attacks globally as the group suffers setbacks at home.”
Islamic State jihadists have also infiltrated through the refugee streams of the West, and joined fellow jihadists in Western countries. This problem has been handled in such a disastrous manner all across Europe that “counterterrorism veterans in Europe and the United States” are now saying that they “warned politicians about” it, as reported in a PBS feature, “How Europe Left itself Open to Terrorism”:
Political leaders focused on addressing a humanitarian catastrophe not seen in Europe since the end of World War II, not terrorism.
Western political leaders have also focused on political correctness and getting votes; they are phobic about being called “Islamophobic” for attempting to deal with the jihad problem.
“Prosecutors: 4 held in Belgium on terrorism charges”, Associated Press, October 18, 2016:
BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian prosecutors say four people have been charged with participating in the activities of a terrorist organization, including by funding it and recruiting people to fight with the Islamic State group in Syria.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office says in a statement that the charges came after 15 homes were searched Tuesday in the Flanders cities of Antwerp, Ghent and Deinze. Prosecutors say no arms or explosives were found.
Prosecutors say 15 people were questioned, of whom four were charged. The prosecutors say there was no established link with the suicide bomb attacks, claimed by Islamic State, which killed 32 victims in Brussels in March….