Ali Tabich Module (Jihadi Entity, Belgium)

• Local Name: Filière Ali Tabich
• Transliteration: N/a
• Alternatives: N/a
• Status: 2006 – 2010 (Defeated)
• Conflicts: European Islamist Militancy

The Ali Tabich Module [FAT; Filière Ali Tabich] was a small group of Bassam Ayachi Network [BAN] members that grew around Tabich in the mid-2000s. Other key figures of the cell were Abdelrahman Ayachi and Islamist preacher Olivier Dassy.¹ It was active in the Molenbeek suburb of Brussels. The cell was in contact with BAN associates operating in the tribal regions of Pakistan.²

The FAT was formed by Ali Tabich following his return from Iraq to Belgium in May 2006.³ The cell aimed to recruit fighters to join jihadi forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.⁴ At the same time, members of the FAT also intended to carry out attacks, including car bombings, in Belgium.⁵ The FAT planned to fund these operations through armed robberies.⁶ Belgian police monitored the cell for almost two years. An undercover police officer even infiltrated the module.⁷

Belgian authorities eventually rolled up the FAT during a series of operations across Brussels in November 2010. Seventeen members of the cell were arrested.⁸ Tabich, Ayachi and other key members of the FAT were given relatively long prison sentences by a court in June 2012.⁹ In February 2013, all of the accused had their sentences sharply reduced by an appeals court.¹⁰