Six BRITONS arrested in Belgium as UK hate preachers linked to Paris attacks mastermind

From the Sunday Express

SIX Pakistani-born British men have been arrested in Belgium after being spotted in old ambulances near Brussels while the capital was in lock down amid fears of a Paris-style terror attack.  A heavily-armed anti-terror unit swooped on the group near a petrol station which is regularly used by Salah Abdeslam – the fugitive terrorist still at large eight days after 130 people were killed in the French capital. Six armoured trucks and a police car rushed in after the old ambulances were parked in a rest area beside the E411 highway in Bierges, south-east of Brussels, at around 2pm local time on Saturday. 

One of the men is understood to be known to British police who are assisting Belgian authorities.

The arrests came as it was revealed the alleged mastermind behind the Paris attacks was part of an extremist network linked to at least six hate preachers from Britain. 

Paris ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud – who was killed in an anti-terror raid by French authorities in Saint-Denis after the atrocities in the French capital on November 13 – was associated with a banned terrorist group called Sharia4Belgium. 

The militant group, which has sent more than 50 Belgian fighters to join ISIS in Syria, was founded by in 2010 by Fouad Belkacem after he travelled to London to seek inspiration from a radical British cleric. 

The cleric, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has described Belkacem as a “dear friend” and told how he was asked to help “start something in Belgium”.

Sharia4Belgium quickly began recruiting impressionable young men from places such as Molenbeek – the Brussels district which has been dubbed Europe’s “jihadi haven” after it emerged several of the Paris attackers came from the troubled town. 

Members of the group also approached Omar Bakri Muhammad, the former London-based hate preacher who was banned from Britain in 2005, while he was living in exile in Lebanon to help gain access to jihadis in Syria. 

It is understood at least three other extremists from the UK travelled together to Belgium to help Belkacem promote sharia on the streets.

They included Abu Rahin Aziz, a father-of-two from Luton who fled to Syria and became an ISIS bombmaker. Britons Asfor Ali and Saiful Islam (also from Luton – his exploits include the business at the Royal Anglian homecoming that was the catalyst to the forming of the EDL) are also thought to have helped Sharia4Belgium leader Belkacem spread his extreme views in his native country. A fourth extremist from the UK, who cannot be named for legal reasons, travelled to Belgium in 2012 to initiate Sharia4Belgium members in “military tactics”. 

“The most significant cause of Belgium’s current jihadist problem, and the largest number of fighters with Isis, was the establishment of the radical group Sharia4Belgium in 2010,” said Guy Van Vlierden, a terrorism expert at the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. 

Belkacem was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Belgium’s largest-ever terrorism trial in February 2015. 

There is a well-known British passport holding ‘cleric’ associated with Sharia4belgium, although he would not be high on my list of those expert in “military tactics”. But if we can’t name the little s***t  specimen remember he was sentenced in his absence in Belgium for his assistance to that group.