Fayçal Ghelam (Jihadi Militant, Belgium)

• Full name: Fayçal Ghelam
• Pseudonym: Abu Bara’a
• Alternatives: N/a
• Location: Syria, fmr Egypt, fmr Belgium, fmr Algeria
• Affiliation: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh]

Fayçal Ghelam (°1974) is a former police officer from Algeria who has turned to jihad. He lived in the city of Liège after moving to Belgium in 1999.¹ Ghelam fathered a child with a local woman and received Belgian nationality in 2004.² He was sentenced to a four-year prison term for armed robbery in 2009.³ Ghelam turned to radical Islam following his release from prison in 2010.⁴

In September 2012, Ghelam traveled to Egypt with his then twelve-year-old daughter to link up with local jihadi forces.⁵ He was trained in militant tactics before traveling to Syria in November 2013.⁶ Ghelam pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham]. He was assigned to policing duties for the organization’s religious courts in July 2014.⁷ In that capacity, Ghelam interrogated people who ran afoul of the DaIISh and carried out executions, including beheadings. During his time with the jihadi forces, he reportedly acquainted several unidentified leaders of the DaIISh and married the sister of a senior member.⁸

Ghelam and his daughter were reportedly caught by Kurdish forces around March 2019.⁹ The girl was returned to Belgium in the summer of 2019.¹⁰ Ghelam is since being held at a Kurdish prison in northern Syria.¹¹ On Apr. 20, 2022, a Belgian court sentenced him in absentia to twelve years in prison for his membership in a terrorist organization and stripped him of his nationality.¹²