The Hofstadgroep (english)

The ‘Hofstadgroep’














15/04/2007
Revised: April 2008
Deliverable 5, Work package 3
‘Citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society’

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CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................3
2. HOFSTADGROEP IN FOCUS ................................................................4
2.1) Historical Background........................................................................................... 4
2.2) The Hofstadgroep network................................................................................. 8
2.3) Methods and Tactics ........................................................................................... 10
3. HOFSTADGROEP’S AUTOPSY ........................................................... 11
3.1) Hofstadgroep in Discourse................................................................................. 11
3.2) Root and Trigger Causes.................................................................................... 12
3.3) Dynamics of Hofstadgroep’s Development.................................................... 14
3.4) Factors of Decline ................................................................................................ 15
4. HOFSTADGROEP’S IMPACT .............................................................. 16
5. CONCLUSION................................................................................... 17
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................... 18


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1. INTRODUCTION

The Hofstadgroep is an Islamist terrorist organization of nine young Muslims in
the Netherlands. The name "Hofstad" was originally the codename the Dutch
General Intelligence and Security Service (Algemene Inlichtingen en
Veiligheidsdienst, hereafter: AIVD) used for the group, which leaked to the
media in 2003. The name refers to a popular name for the city of The Hague,
where some members had been active. The group was influenced by the ideology
of Takfir wal Hijra, a violent Islamist organization.
One of the Hofstadgroep’s key members is Mohammed Bouyeri, the man
responsible for the murder of controversial Dutch writer and filmmaker Theo van
Gogh in November 2004. Bouyeri was convicted in July 2005 for planning and
carrying out the attack. Thirteen other suspects were taken into custody on
various charges in connection with the murder. Nine of the total fourteen
suspects were convicted for membership of a terrorist organization and are
currently serving various sentences ranging from one year to life imprisonment.
In this study, we only consider the nine convicts as the Hofstadgroep and regard
a number of other persons that have close links with the group as its ‘entourage’
or surrounding network. This makes the Hofstadgroep network at least twice as
big as the group of nine convicted members.
















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2.
HOFSTADGROEP IN FOCUS

2.1
Historical
Background

In 2002, the Hofstadgroep emerged from a diffuse and self-generated
autonomous network of about twenty young radical Muslims who met each other
to discuss political and religious issues. This network did not have fixed
boundaries as its composition changed over time. Some persons participated in
only a few meetings, but then dropped out because of disputes or lack of
interest. About a dozen persons can be considered the core of the Hofstadgroep
network, which even at the time of the arrest of its ‘members’ can best be
described as a network (Interview with Janny Groen, Amsterdam: De Volkskrant,
6-4-2007).
A number of individuals that participated in this group or network
gradually developed more radical ideas on Islam and how to be a good Muslim.
The discussions also began to focus on the idea/notion of Jihad and attitudes
towards non-believers, which included the great majority of all Muslims. The
meetings of the network participants took place in a few mosques (in particular
the As Soennah mosque in The Hague), as well as in private homes (specifically
that of Mohammed Bouyeri in Amsterdam).
Key participants in these meetings were mainly young Dutch Moroccans,
including Mohammed Bouyeri and Samir Azzouz, and illegal aliens such as the
Moroccan Nouredine Al Fathni and the only older person of the network, the
Syrian Redouan al Issar, who was in his forties. The latter is believed to have
been Hofstadgroep’s spiritual leader (AIVD, 2005:14). Initially, Mohammed
Bouyeri was not considered the most conspicuous person within this group.
Having translated many radical Islamist texts from English to Dutch and taking
on the role of a ‘scholar’ of this group of friends, Bouyeri’s role was considered to
be a more passive one.
By 2004, some of the participants in the network had developed extreme
radical ideas including plans to use violent means to defend Islam. This holds
true particularly in the case of Mohammed Bouyeri. In September 2004 he had
reached a stage at which he developed plans to not only threaten but also kill
persons who, in his eyes, were insulting Islam or the prophet Mohammed. One of
these people was the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh who produced a critical

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film on the position of women within Islam called “Submission”. The initiative for
this film came from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim from Somalia and, at the
time, a Member of a liberal political party in the Dutch Parliament. The film was
aired on television at the end of August 2004. A few weeks later, Bouyeri was
believed to be in the possession of a type HS gun that was made in Croatia
(District Court of Amsterdam, 26 July 2005).
To many who knew Mohammed Bouyeri during his childhood it came as a
surprise that he would develop extreme ideas and practices. Bouyeri was born in
Amsterdam in 1978 as a child of immigrant parents of Moroccan Berber heritage.
He grew up in a low-income immigrant neighbourhood in the west of Amsterdam.
In elementary school Bouyeri was an exemplary student and was able to advance
to higher general secondary education in 1990. In 1995 Bouyeri received his
diploma, one of his teachers even praised him as one of the ‘bright boys’ who
would ‘probably succeed’ (Benschop, 2005). Bouyeri wanted to help his peers to
achieve more in Dutch society. He did not have many friends and was shy
around girls. At college he switched his studies a number of times (Vermaat,
2005:25), and in 2000, after five years, he dropped out all together.
Bouyeri’s first encounter with the police happened in 1997 when he was
involved in a fistfight with a police officer. Later in the Spring of 2000 Bouyeri
prevented his sister from leaving the house because of her affair with a Moroccan
boy and the police were once again involved. A year later he got into a fight with,
by then, his sister’s ex-lover and drew a knife during the fight. Bouyeri was
convicted for the incident and spent twelve weeks in prison, where religion
started to become more important for him. In his cell he began to study the
Koran (Benschop, 2004).
After his release from prison, Bouyeri worked as a volunteer at a
community centre in Amsterdam. He also began to write columns for a
neighbourhood newsletter, voicing the needs of the Moroccan youth in the area.
In this period he tried to organize and receive funding for a new youth centre,
but saw his idea rejected by the authorities. Progressively, the nature of his
writings became more and more radical. Under the pseudonym Abu Zubair, he
wrote at least a dozen extremist texts on Internet discussion sites visited by
young Muslims, in which he made calls upon young Muslims to ‘wake up’ from
their paralysing sleep and to actively take part in the ‘defensive Jihad’ against

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the West. It was from these publications that the AIVD began to take notice of
Bouyeri and began to tap his phone (Benschop, 2004).
In the last phase of his radicalization process before killing Theo van Gogh,
around summer of 2004, he is believed to have encountered some misfortune in
relation to girls. His reputation as the ‘scholar’ of the network sitting behind his
personal computer most of the time was not regarded as high as that of a ‘true’
Jihadi with plans to travel to places such as Chechnya or Iraq or who would be
willing to take concrete action in the Netherlands. One girl is said to have turned
him down as her husband in the spring of 2004, which may have provoked
Bouyeri to trade his computer for a gun (Interview with Janny Groen, 6-4-2007).
On the morning of Tuesday November 2, 2004, he brutally assassinated
filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had been biking unsuspectingly to work moments
before. Bouyeri shot him eight times. Van Gogh died on the spot. Bouyeri then
tried to cut his throat, nearly decapitating him, and pinned a five-page letter to
his chest with a knife. In this letter Bouyeri referred to ideologies of the Takfir
wal Hijra’s organization and threatened Western governments, Jews and a
number of Dutch politicians including Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
After a shoot out with the police, Bouyeri was arrested near the spot
where he had killed Van Gogh. He ran out of bullets and had been shot in the leg.
On that day and the following days more than a dozen other participants of the
network were arrested at several locations. Two of these suspected members of
the Hofstadgroep were arrested after a fourteen-hour siege of their apartment in
The Hague. One of them threw a hand grenade at the police when they tried to
enter the place. Five members of the arrest team were seriously wounded. Later
the police shot the same suspect in the arm to force his arrest (13/129227-04
District Court of Amsterdam.)
The suspects were tried in two separate trials. The first took place in
Amsterdam where Bouyeri was sentenced for the killing of Theo van Gogh. He
was, among others, convicted and received the maximum sentence possible; life
without parole (District Court of Amsterdam, 26 July 2005). He and thirteen
other suspects were subsequently brought to the court of Rotterdam which
convicted nine of them for membership of a terrorist organization (i.e. the
Hofstadgroep). The nine convicted were:


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o Mohammed Bouyeri (born 8.3.1978 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands). As
he was already serving a life sentence without parole for the murder of
Theo van Gogh he did not receive an additional prison term for
membership of a terrorist organisation.

o Jason Theodore James Walters, a.k.a. Abu Mujahied Amrik; a.k.a.
Abdullah; a.k.a. David (born 6.3.1985 in Amersfoort, The Netherlands).
Son of an American father and a Dutch mother. Walters was arrested 10
November 2004 after a 14-hour siege in The Hague. He was sentenced to
15 years of imprisonment for membership in a terrorist organization and
five murder attempts.

o Ismael Akhnikh (born 22.10.1983 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands) was
arrested 10 November 2004 with Jason Walters in The Hague. He was
sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment for membership in a terrorist
organization and for being an accomplice to five murder attempts.

o Mohammed Fahmi Boughabe (born 6.12.1981 in Hoceima, Morocco) was
arrested 10 November 2004. He was sentenced to 18 months of
imprisonment for membership in a terrorist organization.

o Nouredine el Fahtni (born 15.8.1982 in Midar, Morocco) was arrested 22
June 2005 in Amsterdam together with two women (Soumaya Sahla en
Martine van den Oever) while carrying a loaded machine pistol. He was
sentenced to five years of imprisonment for membership in a terrorist
organization and for the illegal possession of arms.

o Youssouf Ettoumi (born 20.10.1977 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands) was
sentenced to one year of imprisonment for membership in a terrorist
organization.

o Ahmed Hamdi (born 5.9.1978 in Beni Said, Morocco) was living together
with Bouyeri. When arrested on 2 November 2004, secret AIVD
information was found in his possession. He was sentenced to two years of
imprisonment for membership in a terrorist organization.

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o Zine Labidine Aouraghe (born 18.7.1978 in Nador, Morocco) was arrested
May 2005. He was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment for
membership in a terrorist organization.

o Mohammed el Morabit (born 24.1.1981 in Al Hoceima, Morocco) was
sentenced to two years of imprisonment for membership in a terrorist
organization.

(District Court of Rotterdam, 10 March 2006).


2.2
The Hofstadgroep network

As a diffuse and self generated autonomous network, the Hofstadgroep was not
organized in a ‘top down’ command structure although they did have spiritual
support and guidance from outside the country. This support was personified in
Redouan al Issar, also known as ‘the Syrian’. The external support did not appear
to come from any international groups, even though some in the mainstream
media tried to point a finger to Al Qaeda. Even some scholars saw a connection.
Paul Wilkinson, one of Europe's leading scholars on terrorism, for instance, cited
the link between the Netherlands Hofstadgroep and Al Qaeda. He regarded the
soft links of the group as an interesting example of Al Qaeda’s “small but
determined presence” within Europe (Wilkinson, 2005:22). Initially the AIVD also
saw a connection to ‘a Moroccan Jihad veteran who was allegedly involved in the
Casablanca attacks’ (AIVD, 2005:14), which disclosed the characteristic
transnational element of contemporary Islamist terrorism. However, in
subsequent publications and statements, the AIVD reported that the
Hofstadgroep had operated autonomously and that there was little evidence to
show that it was in some way connected to international terrorist organizations
(AIVD, 2005:19).
Since the trial of Mohammed Bouyeri and the other members of the
Hofstadgroep, the group is generally regarded as an autonomously operating
network with no proven hard links with other terrorist ‘organizations’ or ‘groups’,
both at home or abroad. The Hofstadgroep – in this study defined as the group of
nine persons who were convicted of its membership – was, however, part of a

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larger fluid network that included individuals who have been charged and/or
convicted of terrorist activities or crimes such as the illegal possession of arms.
The most noticeable individuals include:

o Samir Azzouz (born in 1986), a Dutch national of Moroccan descent who
had close links to individual members of the Hofstadgroep, though he was
never prosecuted for membership of this particular group. In January 2003
he was arrested in Ukraine, together with a friend, while allegedly on his
way to join the Jihad in Chechnya. In October 2003, Azzouz and three
others (Ismail Akhnikh, Jason Walters and Redouan Al Issar) were
arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of constituting a terrorist cell, but
were released for lack of evidence. In June 2004, Azzouz was arrested
again. This time in relation to an armed robbery of a supermarket. During
a search of his house, police found what they believed to be evidence that
Azzouz had been involved in planning several attacks on Dutch targets.
However, at trial the judge concluded that there was insufficient evidence
to convict Azzouz on the charge of planning terrorist attacks. He was
convicted only on the charge of illegal possession of firearms and
sentenced to three months in jail. In October 2005 he was arrested again
with six others on terrorism charges and finally sentenced for planning
terrorist attacks and membership in a criminal organization with terrorist
intensions. This group has been labelled by the media as the Piranha
group (the AIVD used this name for the case), but is generally believed to
be part of the Hofstadgroep. The three other persons convicted were
Mohammed Chentouf, Soumaya Sahla, and Nouredine El Fahtni (District
Court of Rotterdam, 1 December 2006). The latter had previously been
convicted for membership in a terrorist organization (District Court of
Rotterdam, 10 March 2006).

o Redouan al Issar, also known as Abu Khaled or "The Sheikh", is a Syrian
national. This illegal alien played an important role in the meetings of the
Hofstadgroep where Jihad and other topics were discussed. Redouan Al
Issar is currently wanted by the Dutch authorities in connection with the
activities of the Hofstadgroep. Al Issar is believed to have fled to Syria and

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according to family members, was arrested in Hama, Syria (Elsevier, July
14, 2005).

o Rachid Belkacem (born in 1973), a Dutch national of Moroccan descent
hosted a number of meetings in his apartment. On the day of Theo van
Gogh’s murder he drove Redouan al Issar to the airport in Brussels.
Belkacem was arrested in London in June 2005 on request of the Dutch
authorities. He was extradited and charged with membership in a terrorist
organization, recruiting for the violent Jihad, and a number of other
offences. In March 2006, he was released provisionally. In July of the
same year Belkacem was found dead in his apartment. Friends and family
claim he was poisoned, for which the authorities found no proof.

o Martine van den Oever (born in 1979) is a Dutch convert to Islam. She
had close contacts to a number of persons that participated in the
Hofstadgroep, among them Nouredine El Fahtni and his wife Soumaya
Sahla. The three were arrested in June 2005 in Amsterdam. Whereas El
Fahtni was convicted for the possession of a firearm when arrested, van
den Oever was released in August. In the media she openly proclaimed to
have nothing to do with terrorism.

o Soumaya Sahla (born in 1983) is a Dutch national of Moroccan descent. As
mentioned above, she is the wife of Hofstadgroep member Nouredine El
Fahtni. Following her arrest in Amsterdam in June 2005, she was
sentenced to nine months in prison for the illegal possession of arms. She
was arrested again in September 2006 and is now serving a four year
prison term for contributing to the preparation of a terrorist attack (District
Court of Rotterdam, 1 December 2006).


2.3
Methods and Tactics

The methods and tactics of the Hofstadgroep are difficult to distinguish because
the ‘group’ lacked a coherent strategy and most of the crimes were committed
by individual members. Nonetheless, in general one could argue that the main
aim was that of a classical terrorist organization: to take lives, or threaten to do

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