In January 1991, Belgium won the release of the last four Belgian hostages held by the Abu Nidal organization (ANO). However, the revelation that ANO spokesman and negotiator Walid Khaled, as part of the hostage settlement, had traveled to Brussels on the eve of the Persian Gulf war generated an intense domestic political reaction resulting in the reassignment of three senior aides to the Belgian Foreign Minister. According to several news reports, in exchange for the hostages who had been seized from the Silco yacht in 1987, Belgium also expelled convicted ANO terrorist Said Nasser after he had served his required minimum sentence, agreed to contribute more than $5 million in aid to Palestinian refugees, and provided two scholarships in Belgium to Palestinians.

During the Persian Gulf war itself, Belgium expelled seven Iraqi diplomats and increased security around foreign missions. There were no terrorist incidents in Belgium directly related to the Persian Gulf war.

Brussels was the scene of several incidents perpetrated by Turkish expatriates in 1991. To protest raids in Turkey against their organization, Dev Sol terrorist firebombed a Turkish bank and airlines office in July. Radical Kurds attacked a Turkish airlines office in August and a Turkish bank in December. In an unrelated development, the Belgian Parliament in March passed a motion calling for Turkey to grant full cultural and political rights for Kurds.

Three Irish suspects, who were arrested in an Antwerp safehouse in December 1990, were convicted of conspiracy against the British Government and possession of weapons and false papers in April 1991. They were sentenced to one- (suspended), two-, and three-year terms. At least one of the three is suspected of being a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). In another case, Belgium requested the extradition from the Netherlands, expected in 1992, of Irishman Peter McNally, suspected of being a member of a PIRA splinter group and involved in the wounding in 1989 of an Antwerp policeman.

Several apparent political killings in Belgium that occurred before 1991 (Jewish leader Joseph Wybrand, Muslim Imam Abdullah al-Ahdal, Canadian "supergun" inventor Gerard Bull, and ethnic Albanian leader Enver Hadri) remained unsolved.

Source: United States Department of State, April 1992.