Quiet Belgian town shocked by Islamist battle

As police swooped on a suspected Islamist cell in Belgium, the quiet streets of the town of Verviers were transformed into a war zone complete with gunshots and explosions. Despite Vervier’s reputation as an Islamist hotbed, residents in the faded industrial town in Belgium’s French-speaking rustbelt said they were still shocked by the raid on Thursday night, which quickly turned into a shootout between police and the suspects holed up in an apartment block. Like the Brussels suburbs of Anderlecht or Vilvoorde, Verviers, which sits at the foot of the Ardennes near the German border, is reported to have an increasingly radicalised Muslim population.

The young people who come from here, mainly of Moroccan origin and Algerian, are all linked. As soon as one of them goes (to fight jihad), that acts like a clarion call.

Michael Privot, an expert on Islam affiliated to the Catholic University of Louvain

With 20 percent unemployment and a largely bleak economic situation leaving many of its ethnic communities feeling dispossessed, it has proved fertile ground for recruitment, experts said. Security specialist Claude Moniquet told Belgian television that Algerian Islamists and people with links to Al-Qaeda were also known to have ties to the town. But many in Verviers, which has a population of around 56,000, were quick to say they hoped that the raids would not cause tensions in the town. Verviers mayor Marc Elsen spent the whole night trying to reassure his citizens and convey to the world media assembled in droves that his town would remain united.

The Muslim community had the strongest reaction, one that says that none of this should exacerbate the delicate balance that makes this town stand on its feet.

Verviers mayor Marc Elsen

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