Abdellah Ouabour (Jihadi Militant, Belgium)

• Full name: Abdellah Ouabour
• Pseudonym: “Chia”
• Alternatives: N/a
• Location: Belgium
• Affiliation: GMIC Maaseik Remnant Network [GMRN], Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh], fmr Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group [GICM]

Abdellah Ouabour (°1974) is a former senior operative of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group [GICM; Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain] who has lived in Belgium since 1990. He was one of the leading members of the GICM logistics cell that operated out of the town of Maaseik.¹ Ouabour apparently acted as a liaison between the GICM’s cells in Belgium and France.² He reportedly also helped to transfer funds from Saudi backers to al-Qa’ida and helped facilitate the travel of GICM operatives.³ In 2001, Ouabour briefly traveled to Afghanistan where he allegedly received training at camps ran by al-Qa’ida forces.⁴ Later that year, Ouabour and fellow GICM operative Khaled Bouloudo traveled to Syria to study Islam.⁵

Ouabour was apprehended by police during a raid in the Sint-Gillis suburb of Brussels in 2004. His arrest came as Belgian authorities clamped down on the GICM’s operations in the country following the 2003 Casablanca attacks and the deadly train bombings in Madrid the following year. Ouabour was tied to several people involved in these operations.⁶ In January 2007, a court found him guilty of involvement in terrorism and sentenced him to prison for six years.⁷

Following his release, Belgian authorities accepted Morocco’s request to extradite Ouabour. He appealed his decision to the European Court for Human Rights which in turn annulled the extradition and ordered the Belgian government to pay him compensation.⁸ In the meanwhile, Ouabour became active in the local Muslim community. He created controversy by giving speeches at a mosque in the Dutch town of Geleen in 2015.⁹

During the mid-2010s, Ouabour became a supporter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham]. Belgian security services suspected him of raising funds for the organization.¹⁰ Worried by Ouabour’s preaching of jihad and religious intolerance, the Belgian government initiated procedures to expel him from the country in 2021. Ouabour feared prosecution in Morocco and appealed to the council that oversees immigration disputes. His repatriation was halted in January 2022.¹¹