Young men in the Molenbeek district of Brussels were sent messages over the weekend calling on them to “make the right choice” and “fight the westerners”.



The texts were sent on Sunday night from a prepaid account that could not be traced or replied to. It followed a video distributed on Facebook, since removed, apparently showing local youths celebrating the attacks in Brussels last week. The death toll from the bombings has risen to 35, Belgium’s health minister said on Monday.

The short SMS message written in French, which the Guardian has seen, says: “My brother, why not fight the westerners? Make the right choice in your life.”

The text reportedly sent to young men in Molenbeek.

The rapid use of technology to spread propaganda after the attacks will stoke fears that Islamic State is trying to use the heightened tension to recruit more disaffected youths.

It is not known how the recipients’ phone numbers were obtained, but community activists believe Isis handlers download all contacts from the phone books of new recruits and select young men of north African origin to follow up.

Jamal Ikazban, the local Socialist party MP, told the Guardian that the communications were stoking tensions in the community. “These people are trying to take our youth by storm,” he said.

“It is like having a big-time drug dealer outside the school gates. We feel the same. They have to be taken off the streets. They are predators and our youths are the victims.”

For jihadis to be brazen enough to put out propaganda during a police crackdown after the attacks was “cheeky”, Ikazban said.



Police stand guard outside court where Salah Abdeslam, wanted over Paris attacks, was appearing last week after his arrest in Molenbeek. Photograph: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA

There are multiple reports of similar Facebook messages and emails being sent to young Muslims around Brussels, although those who receive them often do not wish to be identified.

Jamal Zaria, the imam at Molenbeek’s Arafat mosque, said fears among parents in the area’s Belgo-Moroccan community were growing.

“They are being exposed to something like a cancer at a metastasic stage,” he said. “It is really spreading very quickly. We have to race against time to develop an immune system for the children in our community so that they reject the message of Daesh [Isis].”

Belgium has been criticised for a slack response to the rise of Isis, and Ikazban said political authorities and security services had not reacted to past warnings from him about locations used by jihadi groups.

A mother of two sons who went to fight in Syria told the Guardian that one of them was subjected to a barrage of intrusive messages before his departure. “In the 10 days before he left home, his recruiter called him 140 times,” she said. “If that is not harassment, I don’t know what is.”

The police refused to intervene when warned that her son was about to depart for Istanbul, she said.

Molenbeek is one of Belgium’s most deprived and stigmatised districts with high levels of poverty and a youth unemployment rate of about 50%. Youths complain that some employers will not hire anyone with a Molenbeek postcode.

“Joining Daesh is a form of suicide,” Ikazban said. “They understand that there is a despair here which could be used to indoctrinate and recruit these people. I’m very angry that we have not done enough about that.”

There are concerns that the polarisation Isis feeds off could be amplified by an “expel the Islamists” demonstration planned in Molenbeek next Saturday by a far-right group.

The march has been banned but after nationalists successfully defied a prohibition on marches on Sunday, community leaders said they were anxious about the risk of more violence.