Antwerp Mayor Bart De Wever (Flemish nationalist) had warned that local Antwerp residents (and their families) joining the civil war in Syria would be cut off from the social benefit system.

The Antwerp OCMW has now suspended the living wage of the wife of a notorious jihadist, Het Nieuwsblad reports. The woman received 1,000 euros per month. She lives with her 3 children in the Kiel district in a social housing area. Her husband, Saïd M'nari, is a notorious member of the radical Islamist group Sharia4Belgium that was officially dismantled last year, but that still has a lot of influence.

"We warned her that this could happen", OCMW president Marco Laenens (N-VA) explains. "She also doesn't speak any Dutch, despite living here for 6 years. She told us she wouldn't start learning Dutch, and that she has no intentions of finding herself a job. In this kind of case, we would have taken the same decision that we have taken now anyway." Laenens adds that he thinks that the woman is being financially supported by certain groups. "She was never late to pay the rent."

Antwerp police are carrying out door-to-door checks to see whether certain youngsters are actually living at their official home address, or whether they travelled to Syria to fight. In that case, their parents will see their child allowance suspended.