OCAD warns of “Fast radicalization in minors”
2024 was a year with two faces, OCAD director ad interim Gert Vercauteren together in the annual report. – © Christophe De Muynck
18 percent of the threat reports that the coordination body received for the threat analysis (OCAD) in 2024 involved minors. There is a « fast radicalization in minors, » says the body in the annual report published on Thursday.
Source: Belga
Today at 11:44 AM
The number of minors involved in plans for extremist or terrorist violence in Belgium seems to have increased in recent years, according to OCAD. It is a phenomenon that can also be observed abroad. For example, there were several such attacks or plans for attacks in France, Sweden and Germany. It illustrates for OCAD that young people are vulnerable to online radicalization, but it is also a challenge for the authorities to prevent young people from taking action.
« For the past three years, almost a third of the people who plan in Belgium were planning to reach an attack under the age of 18, » it sounds. « If we look at the identified perpetrators of threat reports, minors in 2024 also appear to be in rising line. »
OCAD also discovers an increase in the number of minors in the common Bank of Terrorism, Extremism, Radicalization Process (GGB Ter). Last year it was about thirty minors with a full status in the database. The findings are in line with what already appeared at the end of May in the annual report of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office: the suspects in terrorist cases are getting younger and younger.
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Last year, OCAD had 287 threat reports, or 13 percent less than in 2023 (332). After investigation, it appeared that 213 of the threats related to extremism or terrorism. The reports came from partner services such as the public prosecutor’s office, the Center for Cyber Security or Radicalization Officers. Eighteen percent of the authors of these threats are minors. In just over half, jihadist-Islamic extremism is the motivation. One of the important findings in 2024 was for OCAD the speed with which (especially) young people radicalize. The strong online dimension in radicalization was also noticeable.
The highly flaring up emotions due to the violent conflict in the Middle East can be a trigger for jihadist terror, it also sounds. Both al-Qaeda and IS regularly called for violence against Israeli and Jewish targets or their allies. « The frustration and feeling of powerlessness among (especially) young people of Islamic origin are in that context factors that can create a climate in which the risk of certain individuals could proceed to violence, also in the West itself, » Ocad warns.
2024 was a year with two faces, OCAD director ad interim Gert Vercauteren together in the annual report. « During the first half we still saw a high number of threat reports, which were largely a result of the increased international tensions, with the war in Gaza first. From June we saw the situation improving gradually. The number of threat reports decreased, and also the threats against the Jewish and Israeli, which continued to be full, he had been full of fulltext.
Since the attack of 16 October 2023 in which two Swedish football supporters died in Brussels, the general threat level 3. That remained unchanged in 2024.
