Malika El Aroud (Arabic: مليكة العرود; 1959 – 6 April 2023)[1] was a Belgian-Moroccan who was convicted of Islamic terrorist activities by a Belgian court in 2010.
[3] El Aroud was the widow of Abdessatar Dahmane, one of the men who assassinated the anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud in Afghanistan on 9 September 2001.
It was when she was in her thirties and a single parent to her daughter, that she rediscovered religion and began frequenting the Centre Islamique Belge, where she married Abdessatar Dahmane.
[3] In February 2005 El Aroud was detained along with her Tunisian-born new husband Moez Garsalloui in an anti-terror raid while living in Switzerland (near Fribourg) and operating websites in support of Al-Qaeda.
[5] Returning to Belgium, El Aroud continued her internet propaganda for Al-Qaeda, using the name Oum Obeyda and encouraging men to fight for jihad.
[4] In December 2008, El Aroud was one of a number of people arrested in Belgium on suspicion of having links with Al-Qaeda or of planning a terrorist attack, possibly on a two-day EU leaders' summit in Brussels.
[7] El Aroud went on trial in March 2010, accused with her husband Garsallaoui of heading a terrorist cell linked to Al-Qaeda and running a website that urged Muslims to sacrifice themselves in jihad.