Thirteen suspected members of a terrorist group were arrested in a major police operation in Antwerp on Tuesday morning.
The suspects were alleged to have distributed jihadist propaganda, De Standaard reports.
Nearly 100 investigators of the federal judicial police raided 13 addresses in the Antwerp region, including the neighbourhoods of Borgerhout, Hoboken and Borsbeek, as part of a case involving “participation in the activities of a terrorist group,” the federal public prosecutor's office confirmed.
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The group in question is feared to be a potential new iteration of Sharia4Belgium, and is said to have been involved in spreading Salafist-Jihadist propaganda that included inflammatory language and anti-Western sentiment via social media.
Earlier involvement in terrorist circles
The suspects include several men who have also previously come up during terrorism investigations, according to information obtained by De Standaard, including one man who was intercepted in 2015 as a minor on his way to Syria. That man was eventually tried as an adult in Antwerp and received a suspended sentence.
The suspects will be brought before the investigating judge in Antwerp on Tuesday.
