In an effort to continuously enhance transparency, CUTA is now making its annual report also available in both German and English.
2023 has been a turbulent year. The terrorist attack by Hamas on 7 October led to an escalation of violence and countless civilian casualties. The conflict is polarising across the world and is a powerful emotional trigger.
In this tense climate, an attack took place in Brussels on 16 October, in which two Swedish football supporters were killed and a third injured. According to his social networks, the perpetrator appeared to have been motivated by the Quran burnings in Sweden and Denmark earlier in the year, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was also clearly a factor. This incident led to a sharp rise in threat reports in October and November, forcing us to raise the general threat level to 3 for Belgium.
The threat emanating from the Islamist movement remains the main threat to our country. Numerous investigations and arrests were again carried out during 2023, with a peak in the spring. It is striking to note that the protagonists are often very young. However, this is not a new phenomenon. It should be noted here that these protagonists only knew each other on the Internet, and had no other connection. At the end of 2023, a series of arrests also took place in right-wing extremist circles in several European countries, including Belgium. These police operations again targeted an online network.
The focus on traditional threat models should not blind us to the fact that the threat has become much more diverse. Almost half of the threat reports received by CUTA last year could not be associated with any clearly delineated ideology. All kinds of conspiracy theories, anti-establishment feelings, but also personal or psychological problems often form a cocktail of motives that is difficult to define. I would also like to mention the importance of the threat posed by state actors, although it is often less visible. Certain foreign actors, for example, try to accentuate the polarisation in our country, to influence our elections or to undermine our democratic values through targeted information operations.