Belgium City Seeks to Change Jihadist Reputation
KINKADE: Welcome back. Now for the latest on the terror investigations in Europe. Belgium authorities say they have arrested and charged one person with links to terrorist activities; two others have been placed in detention. In Brussels, the city's threat was lowered to serious, the second highest ranking after it was in lockdown last weekend. The small town just outside the Belgian capital was once called the "city of jihadis" after dozens of its citizens left for Syria. But since taking office, Vilvoorde's mayor has taken some extraordinary steps to change the city's reputation, including a deradicalization officer for the town. Alexandra Field reports.</s>ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The fastest-growing town in Belgium is small. Vilvoorde's population is just 42,000. So when it started feeding fighters to Syria, things spiraled quickly but then stopped suddenly.</s>HANS BONTE, MAYOR, VILVOORDE: The exodus started in the summer of 2012.</s>FIELD: So in those two years, from 2012 to 2014, had 28 people leave here to go to Syria. Where are they now?</s>BONTE: Some of them are still there. Some of them are killed.</s>FIELD (voice-over): Mayor Hans Bonte took office in 2013 in the middle of the crisis. At the time he says Vilvoorde was called the city of jihadis.</s>BONTE: I've heard it, young boys telling me, my dream is to be killed.</s>FIELD (voice-over): Today the mayor is cautiously declaring at least a measure of victory for his deradicalization and intervention efforts.</s>BONTE: Radicalism, you win it or lose it on the corners of the street.</s>FIELD (voice-over): Counteracting messages from recruiters has taken the work of a coalition, the police, family, a lot of community members and outreach workers.</s>MOAD EL BOUDANI, YOUTH WORKER: We try to send social workers towards the houses, engaging into the families and tried for the first time providing help.</s>FIELD (voice-over): The proof of success, they say, is that no one has made it to Syria from Vilvoorde since May of 2014. But nearby in Brussels, raids to root out anyone with ties to the terror cell that perpetrated the Paris attacks continue, making it clear there's still a second front in a bigger battle across Belgium, a country that is proportionately the largest supplier of foreign fighters to Syria. What to do about those who come back?</s>BONTE: In my opinion, someone who has left Belgium to go over there to fight in Syria, he can stay there.</s>FIELD (voice-over): Seven of the 28 who traveled from Vilvoorde to Syria eventually returned to the town, Bonte says. Most were sent to prison, but the mayor says those who weren't are carefully and constantly monitored by the police and the community.</s>BONTE: Most of these people who came back, I don't think they are risky but you only need one fool.</s>FIELD (voice-over): He insists everyone must watch to keep anyone from falling through the cracks -- Alexandra Field, CNN, Vilvoorde.</s>KINKADE: Now we're learning more about one of the men behind the Paris attacks. Samy Amimour was amongst three attackers hits on the Bataclan concert hall two weeks ago. Amimour then blew himself up. Now his sister is speaking out exclusively to CNN. Our Hala Gorani spoke with her in French and the woman asked us not to show her face or use her real voice.</s>HALA GORANI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR (voice-over): He was one of the terrorists responsible for the worst terrorist attack in France in half a century. One of three shooters at the Bataclan concert hall on November 13th, his name revealed days later, Samy Amimour. For the first time on international television, his sister is speaking out.</s>GORANI: At what point did you learn that your younger brother was one of the attackers?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): At first I was shocked. I was screaming in despair and sadness. And when I gathered my thoughts, I thought this information was wrong, that there was a mistake, that it was impossible.</s>GORANI (voice-over): A man who grew up to be a mass murderer but whose --</s>GORANI (voice-over): -- life, according to his sister, started very differently. She shared personal pictures of her brother with us.</s>GORANI: The Samy you knew, you're saying was a nice guy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Exactly. He was a nice person, a sensitive person, a bit shy, somebody you can rely on, a generous person, someone nice who loved to laugh and joke.</s>GORANI (voice-over): But then that man disappeared, she says, literally, traveling to Syria to join ISIS. His father reportedly went after his son to try to convince him to come home, to no avail. Amimour's family actually stayed in touch with him while he was in Syria. The last message from him was sent in August of this year.</s>GORANI: In your last contact with him, was it just an ordinary conversation?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Yes.</s>GORANI: With absolutely no sign that anything like this could happen?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): No. No sign. Totally normal conversation. I asked him how he was. And he told me, listen, I am very well, I have a lot of things to deal with at the moment. So I will call you very soon. Send kisses to everyone and to my cat.</s>GORANI: How do you reconcile the -- your brother, who says, kiss the parents, kiss the cat, you know, I'll call you soon, the little boy you grew up with, with the man who so coldly murdered dozens of helpless people in a concert hall?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): To me, there's no link. It's almost like it's not him. There's no chance. I know it's real but...</s>GORANI (voice-over): So what happened to a man who worked as a bus driver, led a seemingly normal life in the northern Paris suburb of Drancy, that turned him into a mass killer and suicide bomber?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It started with the Internet. He visited websites that were sort of controversial. Then it continued with videos and then it stayed that way. Then beyond the world of the Internet, there was also the real world. People came to talk to him.</s>GORANI: Where?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): In the area, here, below the house. They came to talk to him more and more and told him that he should attend the sermon at the mosque more regularly, that he should be more devoted to his practice of Islam. Then they led him towards mosques that were more radical.</s>GORANI (voice-over): These are some of the pictures of Amimour's victims, some of the 89 people ruthlessly killed that night. Does his family feel any responsibility for Amimour's actions?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Of course, there's part of us that says maybe it's our fault. Maybe we should have done something different. Maybe, just maybe.</s>GORANI: If you had an opportunity to speak to the family of one of the victims, what would you say to them?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Sorry for your loss. We're sorry, because we didn't want all of this. We understand the pain they feel and we know that nothing will bring their families back, whatever we may say. So we just hope that they can mourn their dead.</s>GORANI (voice-over): Hala Gorani, CNN, Paris.</s>KINKADE: Still to come on CNN NEWSROOM, Miss Canada can't get into China for this year's Miss World competition. Why the beauty queen says the country is punishing her. That story just ahead.