Paris attack terrorist Mohamed Belkaid was radicalized in Sweden.

Paris attack terrorist Mohamed Belkaid was radicalized in Sweden. (sverigesradio).

A former resident of Sweden who was killed in a police anti-terror raid in Brussels was recruited and radicalized in Stockholm by an extremist network whose leader has eluded Säpo for over a decade, reports SVT's investigative programme, Uppdrag granskning.

Mohamed Belkaid lived in Sweden for almost four years before leaving to join IS in Syria in 2014. The 35-year-old Algerian is said to have had a coordinating role in the terrorist attacks in Paris and was reported to be planning new attacks in Brussels in March when he was shot dead by Belgium police at an apartment shared with several over jihadists.

A week later, the remainder of the terror group killed over 30 people in Brussels with suicide bombs.
Uppdrag granskning can now reveal that Belkaid became radicalized in Sweden by an Islamic extremist who recruits and helps finance the so-called Islamic State. The security and intelligence service Säpo has known about the man since the 1990s.

Sources tell the program that Mohamed Belkaid worked at a shop run by the former radical preacher in central Stockholm. He also lived in the same apartment block, along with other IS recruits.

The shop worked as a meeting place for extremists and according to Uppdrag Granskning, and it is where Belkaid, a petty thief, became radicalized.

The shop has since closed down and the whereabouts of its owner are not known although sources tell the program that he is is still an active IS recruiter in Sweden.

Uppdrag granskning, in cooperation with the German public service broadcaster ARD, gained access to a leaked list first given to Sky News, containing thousands of names of IS fighters. The documents date from 2013 and 2014 and include the names, addresses and other personal details as well as whether the candidate is prepared to carry out a suicide attack.

Europol : "10,000 refugee children are missing".

Europol : "10,000 refugee children are missing". (Guardian).

The EU’s criminal intelligence agency warns pan-European gangs are targeting minors for sex work and slavery.

At least 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have disappeared after arriving in Europe, according to the EU’s criminal intelligence agency. Many are feared to have fallen into the hands of organised trafficking syndicates.

In the first attempt by law enforcement agencies to quantify one of the most worrying aspects of the migrant crisis, Europol’s chief of staff told the Observer that thousands of vulnerable minors had vanished after registering with state authorities.

Brian Donald said 5,000 children had disappeared in Italy alone, while another 1,000 were unaccounted for in Sweden. He warned that a sophisticated pan-European “criminal infrastructure” was now targeting refugees. “It’s not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus children.

Not all of them will be criminally exploited; some might have been passed on to family members. We just don’t know where they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with.” Hmmm.......And then there's the remote possibility that some are 'Caliphate cubs' who gather at known support addresses. Read the full story here.

Related:

Officials in Trelleborg in southern Sweden have told The Local that around 1,000 unaccompanied refugee children and young adults who have arrived in the town over the last month have since gone missing.

The small coastal town is currently experiencing its biggest influx of refugees to date, with several hundred people turning up every week since the start of September, according to authorities. But out of 1,900 children who have arrived in Trelleborg over the last month without parents or older relatives, at least half are believed to have left the area without alerting officials, despite being given temporary accommodation there.