2015 Verviers police raid: what Wikipedia removed
The January 2015 Verviers raid was a Belgian police operation that killed two suspected jihadists days after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. The 2015 opening quoted Belgian prosecutors describing the raid as targeting “a jihadist terrorist cell, reportedly believed to have links to ISIS, on the verge of committing a terrorist attack.” Today’s opening says only that it was “an anti-terrorist operation against Islamist radicals,” though jihad survives three times in the body. A reader today does not learn that Belgian prosecutors linked the cell to ISIS and said it was about to carry out an attack.
The word “jihad” appeared 2 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2015. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 3. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| jihad | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| terror | 9 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| islamist | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- A reader no longer learns that Belgian prosecutors described the raid as targeting a jihadist cell with reported ISIS links.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2015 (revision 663790468):
On 15 January 2015, Belgian police carried out a raid on premises in Verviers, Belgium. According to news sources, the raids were an anti-terrorist operation against Islamist radicals . Two suspects died in the raids, which involved heavy gunfire, with a third being seriously wounded. Other operations were carried out in Brussels , Schaerbeek , Sint-Jans-Molenbeek , Vilvoorde , and Zaventem . An armed man was reported to have been arrested in Brussels. The Belgian prosecutor’s office stated that the raids were an operation against a jihadist terrorist cell, reportedly believed to have links to ISIS , on the verge of committing a terrorist attack. Police are investigating the possibility of l…
2025 (revision 1289136025):
On 15 January 2015, Belgian police carried out a raid on premises in Verviers , Belgium . According to news sources, the raids were an anti-terrorist operation against Islamist radicals . ^ “Belgian anti-terror raid in Verviers ‘leaves two dead’ ” . BBC News. 15 January 2015. ^ “Belgian counterterrorism raid in Verviers leaves 2 dead, report says” . CBC News. 15 January 2015.
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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