Gulf Times : Belgian police investigate terror plot after arrest of 11 soldiers

Belgian police investigate terror plot after arrest of 11 soldiers

September 9, 2006

BRUSSELS: Belgian authorities were yesterday investigating the extent of an alleged neo-Nazi terror plot, following the arrest of 17 suspects including 11 serving soldiers.

Police on Thursday seized arms and explosives during search operations carried out in five barracks and 18 private addresses in the Flemish-speaking north of the country, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“The size of the operation shows that the matter has been taken very seriously,” a source close to the case said.

Those arrested were mainly “soldiers and people with an extreme-right ideology who clearly express themselves through racism, xenophobia, Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism”, the statement read.

They were allegedly planning “terrorist actions” aimed at destabilising the country’s institutions.

A month ahead of municipal elections, the arrests provoked a cry of electoral manipulation from far-right groups.

The Belgian press were united in their opinion and, like Brussels’ Le Soir denounced the “neo-Nazi soldiers who seek to destabilise the country”.

The main suspect, identified by the initials T B, is a serving military man “who intended to put terrorist ideas into practice”, it added.

The 25-year-old was said to be the founder of a Flanders cell of an extreme-right group established in Britain 20 years ago called “Blood and Honour”.
He is a serving soldier with a regiment based in the small garrison town of Bourg-Leopold, near the Dutch border.

In their raids, Belgian police seized explosives, various firearms, as well as land mine detonators, a large amount of munitions, neo-Nazi propaganda and gas masks, according to the same source.

Nazi paraphernalia was also confiscated along with a home-made bomb and detonator in one of the houses which were searched.

Even though nothing seized pointed to a specific attack, investigators believe that the group’s leader intended to “put his terrorist ideas into practice”, the federal prosecutor said.

Belgian Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx and Defence Minister Andre Flahaut hailed the “exemplary collaboration” between the police, military and judiciary “which today allowed for the dismantling of a neo-Nazi group within the heart of the army who notably engaged in the trafficking of arms and in racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and negationist propaganda”.

Flahaut gave particular praise to the military intelligence service “for its key role in the matter”.

He added that the discovery of “a few bad apples” within the military ranks should not taint the army as a whole. – AFP