(Brussels Times) Not more than two months ago, the Brussels Times met with TRENDS Research & Advisory, an Abu Dhabi-based think tank, which hosted an annual forum on political Islam. Barely a fortnight later, Belgian police foiled a jihadist-inspired plot to assassinate Prime Minister Bart De Wever, just as analysts in Abu Dhabi unveiled a sweeping study mapping the global decline of political Islam’s most organised network: the Muslim Brotherhood.
The two stories, unfolding in very different corners of the world, revealed a paradox: while the formal power of Islamist movements is waning, their ideological afterglow continues to inspire acts of violence in Europe.
Déjà vu
When police in Antwerp arrested three young men suspected of plotting a “jihadist-inspired terrorist attack” against Belgium’s prime minister, it reopened an old wound.
