Ukrainian teenager arrested over mosque terror plot

The underage suspect was found with knives and Nazi iconography

Police in Belgium have arrested a 14-year-old Ukrainian boy over an alleged plot to attack a mosque in Brussels. The teenage suspect was described as holding extreme right-wing beliefs.

The boy was arrested on Thursday and has been charged with preparing a terrorist attack, the public prosecutor’s office in the Belgian capital said in a statement released the same day. The Ukrainian teen “was planning to commit an attack on a mosque on Friday 24 January, a day of prayer and a busy time in mosques,” according to prosecutors.

Citing “confidential information,” police raided the boy’s home at dawn, seizing knives, computer equipment and homemade Nazi iconography, the statement said.

The teenager lives in Molenbeek, a deprived suburb of Brussels with a majority Muslim population. He allegedly planned to target the Annajah mosque in the neighborhood.

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Over the last decade, Molenbeek has become known as a hotbed of Islamist radicalization. Three perpetrators of the 2015 Paris terror attacks lived in the area, which has been a fertile recruitment ground for both Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and other jihadist and opposition groups fighting in the Syrian Civil War.

Speaking in parliament on Thursday, Belgian Justice Minister Paul Van Tigchelt said that the suspect harbored extreme right-wing views, which he had been exposed to online. “The radicalization process of these young people is developing much more quickly than in the past,” Van Tigchelt warned, in remarks carried by Belgian media.

Almost a third of suspects involved in terrorism cases between 2022 and 2024 were minors, according to a report published by Belgium’s State Security Service earlier this month. Three quarters of these minors were allegedly involved in jihadist activity, while a quarter were suspects in right-wing plots, the report stated. The youngest suspect arrested in this period was 13 years old.

”This is a worrying increase,” the minister added.