Belgian city at fore in ISIL fight
Mayor outlines strategies to stem recruitments
Vilvoorde is a sleepy, little Flemish city not far from the Belgian capital of Brussels, but over the last few years it has become a hotbed for radicalization and recruitment by the Islamic State terrorist organization, also known as ISIL or ISIS.
For Hans Bonte, who has been mayor since 2013, Islamic State’s inroads have made his town a “laboratory” for examining how to stop young people from joining violent extremist groups.
“We have seen young people leaving (to join Islamic State) from virtually every secondary school in my city or from every neighbourhood,” he told the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism on Wednesday.
In all, 28 young people, mostly boys, have left to fight with Islamic State since 2012. Of those, five are dead and eight have returned. Two are in prison.
Equally important is the fact some of the original recruits are now senior members of Islamic State’s “foreign ministry,” said Bonte, who was among community leaders speaking at the summit.
“They are seen in awful video movies and they were successful in recruiting other young people from my city and from the region and from Belgium,” he added.
“And so that is the reason why a lot of young people from Belgium followed the first group which were, as you can say, very hardcore militants of (Islamic State).”
About 380 Belgians out of a population of 10 million have left to fight in Syria and Iraq, the highest proportion of citizens to join Islamic State in Europe. Of that number, 101 returned. Another 50 are believed to have been killed.
“Another 40, including a number of under-age girls, are marked as potential leavers,” he said.
Bonte has been marshaling the city’s law enforcement, education and social services to fight back with strategies to pinpoint potential recruits and counter Islamic State recruitment narratives.
Although he says “nobody has left for Syria or Iraq since the summer of 2014,” Islamic State’s attraction remains powerful.
The group uses a sort of pyramid approach, with each recruit in turn recruiting others. Islamic State bombards targets with social media messages claiming they can play a heroic role in creating a caliphate that will unite Muslims.
“They radicalize and isolate them,” said Bonte, adding the targets are disaffected young people who have been in trouble with the police and have fallen out with their families.
“We are facing a global problem but we have to act locally.”
Sasha Havlicek, head of the Institution for Strategic Dialogue in London, said research done for the Canadian government shows Islamic State is miles ahead in its sophisticated use of the Internet.
“(It) could give master classes on branding and peer-to-peer media marketing,” she said. “They have even created their own Twitter amplification apps.
“But the real problem here is the monumental gap that we have allowed to transpire between their tech-savvy, 24/7 strategic propaganda machinery on the one hand and our counter efforts on the other.”