Molenbeek (pronounced MOLE-en-bake)

Molenbeek, Belgium, you may recall, was the Brussels neighborhood that was home to almost half of the jihadists responsible for the 2015 Paris attacks and several subsequent terror attacks in Belgium. The bomber of a train at Brussels Central Station in 2017, for instance, lived in Molenbeek. Mehdi Nemmouche, who shot and killed four people at Brussels’ Jewish Museum in 2014, had previously lived in Molenbeek. The mastermind of the Paris killings, Abdelhamid Abboud, grew up and still lived in Molenbeek.

Most of Molenbeek’s population is Moroccan, though immigrants from elsewhere in North Africa and from Eastern Europe have also settled there.

After the Paris and Brussels attacks, however, Molenbeek witnessed something of a transformation, thanks in part to the so-called “Kanaalplan” (Canal Plan), which invested nearly €40 million in the central Brussels region to strengthen the police force, build and improve housing, create community centers for local youth, and develop the local economy. The goal, according to UN Habitat, was a “holistic transformation” that would create “a more sustainable, productive, and inclusive territory.”

And for a while, it worked. Non-Muslims — mostly artists — moved into the area. A new museum of contemporary art opened, as did a center for art and technology. World media celebrated the progress being made there, and the absence of jihadist activity in Molenbeek and nearby communities.

These days, as the local drug gangs controlled by Albanians and Moroccans battle openly on Molenbeek’s streets, officials fear a new jihadist generation may quietly be emerging.

Even without concerns of Islamist terrorism, the violence in Molenbeek has reached unmanageable heights.

True, the shootings in Molenbeek are not aimed at murdering enemy gang members. Rather, gunmen shoot their adversaries in the legs, aiming more to threaten and intimidate than to kill. This seems to be true, too, of the knife attacks and car burnings. Nonetheless, the frequency and boldness of the violence makes it clear that this is not just about ruling drug turf. It is about power, about domination and control. It is about who rules life in Molenbeek, and the culture of crime, radicalization, and violence that reigns there.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2022/07/11/in-belgium-jihadists-guns-and-drug-money/