Chalil Man Network (Jihadi Entity, Belgium)

• Local Name: N/a
• Transliteration: N/a
• Alternatives: N/a
• Status: 2013 – 2015 (Defeated)
• Conflicts: N/a

The Chalil Man Network [CMN] was a Chechen jihadi entity operating in and around the Flemish town of Ostend.¹ The network was extremely covert and operated completely isolated from other jihadi organizations in Belgium.² Its members had a Salafi Islamist background.³ The CMN had up to twenty members and its leaders had ties to senior Chechen militants such as Aslan Sigauri and Tourchaev Khassanbek.⁴

The CMN was apparently formed by Chalil Man after he had returned to Belgium following a short stint with the Army of Emigrants and Partisans [JMA; Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar] during the early phases of the civil war in Syria.⁵ Man gathered associates to form an informal network that served as a foreign logistics affiliate and fundraising vehicle for the JMA.⁶ The CMN also recruited Chechen fighters and facilitated their travel to Syria via a Man-owned safehouse in Turkey.⁷ The network allegedly organized a training camp for some of its recruits in Wallonia at one point.⁸ Only two of the network’s own members traveled to Syria.⁹ Like the JMA, Man and his associates became loyal to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham].

Police began monitoring the CMN in October 2014 after a senior member had sought treatement at a Belgian hospital for injuries sustained while fighting in Syria.¹⁰ Key network operatives were wiretapped.¹¹ On Jun. 08, 2015, Belgian authorities rolled up most of the CMN when police raided fifteen premises linked to the entity in Ostend and the nearby towns of Bredene and Jabbeke.¹² A court in Bruges sentenced twelve of the network’s members to prison on Dec. 23, 2016. Man was given a ten-year prison term.¹³ In June 2017, the militants’ convictions were confirmed by an appeals court.¹⁴ Judges increased Man’s sentence to twelve years.