- Local Name: N/a
- Transliteration: N/a
- Alternatives: N/a
- Status: 2004 – 2008 (Defeated)
- Conflicts: Islamist Militancy in Belgium
The Aroud and Garsallaoui Network [AGN] was an al-Qa’ida-affiliated jihadi constellation active in Belgium, France and Switzerland during the 2000s. It mainly served as an al-Qa’ida conduit for the dissemination of propaganda and the recruitment of European fighters.
The network emerged in the summer of 2004 when Malika el-Aroud and Moez Garsallaoui set up their first jihadi forum. Before long, they maintained several sites on which propaganda from an array of al-Qa’ida-linked militant outfits was distributed.1 By 2007, Aroud and Garsallaoui had become prominent jihadi propagandists. The couple also began recruiting associates from Belgium and France at mosques and through the internet.2 Both were briefly apprehended by Swiss police in February 2005, but they continued their activities following their release.3 A court eventually convicted Aroud and Garsallaoui in June 2007.4 Garsallaoui only had to serve a few weeks in a Swiss prison.5 Aroud’s sentence was suspended.6
Aroud and Garsallaoui subsequently moved to Brussels. The couple stepped up their involvement with al-Qa’ida. In November 2007, Garsallaoui traveled to Pakistan where he linked up with the group in the country’s northwestern tribal lands.7 Garsallaoui developed close ties with leading al-Qa’ida operatives and set up the Soldiers of the Caliphate [JaK; Jund al-Khilafa].8 From Pakistan, he recruited about a dozen jihadis from Belgium and France.9 Aroud helped facilitate and finance their travel.10 Garsallaoui arranged training for the recruits and later incorporated them into the JaK.11
Meanwhile in Belgium, Aroud set up a cell to free al-Qa’ida terrorist Nizar Trabelsi from prison.12 The module was rolled up by Belgian security forces on Dec. 21, 2007.13 Police arrested more than a dozen of its members. They were all released the next day due to lack of specific evidence and Aroud continued planning jihadi operations in Belgium.14 She formed a new cell that was soon reinforced with terrorists who had been trained by Garsallaoui in Pakistan. One of these operatives allegedly planned to carry out a suicide attack in Belgium.15
Belgian authorities intercepted e-mail traffic of with references to terrorist plots and rolled up the AGN cell on Dec. 11, 2008.16 Police raided premises in Brussels and Liège. Aroud and some of her associates, including the network’s third-in-command and prospective suicide terrorist Hicham Beyayo, were arrested during the operation.17
On May 10, 2010, a Belgian court convicted most of the key AGN operatives. Aroud and Garsallaoui were sentenced to eight years in prison.18 Other members of the network were given shorter prison terms.19 Garsallaoui remained at large in Pakistan. He oversaw a number of attacks against American troops in Afghanistan, helped coordinate jihadi operations in Kazakhstan and continued to recruit jihadis from Europe. One of these terrorists killed seven people during attacks on French soldiers and a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012.20 Garsallaoui was eventually eliminated in an American aerial drone strike later that year.21
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