last updated: Dec. 20, 2021
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- Full name: Lahoussine el-Haski
- Pseudonym: N/a
- Alternatives: Houcine el-Haski
- Location: Belgium
- Affiliation: GMIC Maaseik Remnants Network [GMRM], fmr Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group [GICM]
Lahoussine el-Haski (1975) is a Moroccan jihadi with a long history of involvement in Islamist militancy. He left Morocco in the early 1990s to study Islamic jurisprudence at a religious seminary in Damascus.1 Haski interrupted his studies in 1994 and traveled to Afghanistan. He linked up with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Party of Islam [HeIG; Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin Faction] and received military training.2 Haski allegedly went on to fight in the ranks of the group on the frontlines in Kabul. In 1996, he left the country.3
Haski returned to Afghanistan in 1999.4 During his stay, he reportedly met with al-Qa’ida leader Osama Bin Laden. Haski later joined the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group [GICM; Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain] and became a member of the organization’s religious council.5 Haski returned to Morocco in 2002 and married the sister of Belgian-Moroccan Islamist Khalid Bouloudo. [6] He later went to Saudi Arabia and apparently became a member of a local al-Qa’ida branch. Saudi authorities linked him to the deadly May 2003 attacks on expatriate compounds in Riyadh.6 His exact role in the operation was never clarified. The Moroccan authorities issued an arrest warrant for Haski in mid-2003.7
In late 2003, Haski arrived in Belgium after having fled to Syria and Turkey to avoid capture.8 He linked up with the Maaseik-based GICM cell that was headed by brother-in-law Bouloudo. Haski subsequently acted as the liaison operative between the GICM’s cells in Belgium and France.9 He also helped out with the group’s finances.10 In the meanwhile, Haski’s brother had served as one of the main organizers of the March 2004 GICM bombings in Madrid that had left more than 190 people dead.11
Haski demanded political asylum in Belgium in June 2004.12 He surrendered to the police in July 2004 after Belgian authorities had initiated a crackdown on the GICM in the country.13 In February 2006, a Belgian court sentenced Haski to seven years in prison.14 He appealed the verdict, but another court confirmed the sentence in January 2007.15
Following his release from prison a few years later, Haski settled in Maaseik and reconnected with other ex-GICM operatives living in the area. In September 2012, the European Court for Human Rights awarded compensation to him because Belgian judges had used evidence provided by the Moroccan government in his earlier convictions.16 During the early 2010s, Haski became a senior member of the GICM Maaseik Remnants Network [GMRN]. This constellation of Islamists recruited jihadis in the Maasland region and facilitated their travel to Syria.17 In the summer of 2014, Haski and his brother-in-law set up a mosque in the village of Neeroeteren.18 The site quickly served as the informal headquarters of the GMRN. In early 2015, several of Haski’s associates were arrested as the authorities cracked down on the network.19 The mosque was also closed.20
Haski later helped Bouloudo mastermind the April 2020 kidnapping of the son of a Kurdish drug trafficker.21 The boy was released after a ransom was paid. Police arrested Haski for his involvement in the abduction in June 2020.22 In March 2021, he was allowed to sit out the rest of his pre-trial detention under house arrest.23
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