Malika El-Aroud died on Friday April 6 in Brussels, at the age of 64, following a long illness. “Mom jihad”, “Black widow of jihad”, “Oum Hobeid”: this Belgian-Moroccan with multiple nicknames was, for more than twenty years, one of the central figures of Muslim radicalism in Europe. An inflexible militant of armed jihad – she notably justified suicide attacks –, sentenced in 2010 to eight years of detention, in Brussels, for the recruitment of fighters, she has never denied her convictions. Arrested again in 2018 and deprived of her Belgian nationality, she was to be deported to Morocco, where she was born. However, the authorities in Rabat have consistently refused to issue him the necessary documents.
Arrived at the age of 5 in Brussels, Malika El-Aroud followed a classic school career, before running away at the age of 17. Life on the streets, drugs, multiple loves: her tumultuous existence led her to a suicide attempt, before this day, she explained later, where she heard “a voice in [sa] head “ whisper to him: “Only the Quran can save you. »
A rescue that she was going to conceive as an obligation to attack Western society in the name of « l’humiliation » it would inflict on Muslims. In Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels, a factory and transit zone for European armed jihad, she then sailed through takfirist circles, which at the time constituted the breeding ground for Al-Qaeda. At the Belgian Islamic Center of Franco-Syrian Bassam Ayachi, she met Dahmane Abd El-Sattar, a Tunisian who had arrived in Belgium to undertake communication studies. Ayachi is going to marry the couple.
Congratulated by Osama Bin Laden
In 2001, Malika El-Aroud joined her husband in Afghanistan, supposedly to develop humanitarian projects, but more certainly to learn how to handle weapons. Dahmane Abd El-Sattar is on a mission for the Al-Qaida network: under the false identity of a journalist, he manages to approach Ahmad Shah Massoud. On September 9, 2001, the commander of the Northern Alliance and leader of the resistance to the Taliban was torn to pieces by the explosives carried in his belt by the Tunisian, who also died. Al-Aroud will describe Massoud as ” the devil “ and, in a book published in 2004, her husband as “a man ready to sacrifice his life to save oppressed innocents”.
Returned to Belgium after having, according to some sources, been congratulated by Osama Bin Laden, she is brought to justice with a dozen other people in 2003. Verdict: acquitted. “Your ideas are very extreme but I can’t judge you for that”, the president of the court will tell him. In particular, she described the anti-American attacks of September 11, 2001 as the work of the “Jews who wanted to divert the attention of the world to raze Palestine and the Palestinians”. The accomplices of “Oum Hobeid” are being given heavy sentences, the judges having considered that their network was preparing other violent actions.
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