Fake Facebook Account Provides Window Into Belgian Jihadi Flight

Sally

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Mar 22, 2012
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It would be very naive to blame just one thing on why so many have left their countries to join up with ISIS.

Fake Facebook Account Provides Window Into Belgian Jihadi Flight

by Gaspard SebagCaroline Alexander
3:01 PM PST February 19, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- Within weeks of setting up a Facebook Inc. account and posing as a would-be Belgian jihadi, Pieter Van Ostaeyen amassed more than 1,000 “friends.”

The 38-year-old Arabic speaker and student of medieval Middle East history set out three years ago to understand what drives hundreds of young Europeans into the arms of Muslim extremists. Van Ostaeyen says his insights are being used by Belgian intelligence services investigating such movements after anti-terrorist raids a month ago left two suspected jihadis dead just days after Islamist attacks in Paris.

“I follow a lot of foreign fighters and they all follow me back,” Van Ostaeyen said of his activity on Twitter Inc. Even after he stopped concealing his identity, messages continued to pour into his inbox, from impoverished city neighborhoods home to North African immigrants, to the war zones of Syria and Iraq.

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Fake Facebook Account Provides Window Into Belgian Jihadi Flight - Bloomberg Business?
 

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