In a Suddenly-Insecure World

Arrests in Belgium, France, and Germany. The world is on high alert, investigators are under pressure to do something to arrest the wave of violence that has been sweeping through Europe. In the West Bank a Palestinian Authority parliamentarian scoffs that Europe feels itself beset by terrorism. Terrorism, he said, is what Palestinians experience. The 'occupation' is the face of terrorism, and since Europe is responsible for helping Israel install itself as a Jewish state, it's high time it bled, too.

A cartoon in the official PA daily, blaming the West for the Brussels bombings and global terrorism in general. Photo: Palestinian Media Watch.

The Brussels bombings succeeded in killing 31 civilians and three bombers. Of the 270 wounded in the attacks, some are so severely wounded they may not survive their ordeal. Others have been disfigured severely by the blast and its deadly rain of shrapnel. While still alive, identification has been hampered by their condition. Desperate relatives of those missing are demanding entrance to hospitals to view the wounded themselves for identification.

Several of the dead still have not been identified. But had the largest and most deadly of the three improvised explosive devices not failed to explode at the airport, the carnage would have been even worse. Desperation has mandated that new security procedures be instituted. Each time there is a new attack new security measures are implemented. But there is always a way to infiltrate even the seemingly most secure measures. By no stretch of the imagination was this airport secure then, and nor is it now.

Nine people have been detained after police raids in central Brussels, Jette and the Schaerbeek areas. Police had found explosives materials and allied bomb-making ingredients earlier in the week in an apartment in Schaerbeek.   Police are very, very alert, extremely taut, an explosive situation. Early reports were that they had apprehended a known suspect holding a bag full of explosives. With him was a little girl, taken into custody after the man, her father, had been shot in the leg.

"We heard 'Don't move'. The man was sitting at the bus stop, a bus stop with a glass wall, and we heard a small detonation and a big detonation."
"Then the police came, took the little girl who was shouting 'Dad', she seemed terrified and the man got shot in the leg anyway because he was still moving."
"Then the police asked him to move his bag. He was lying on the ground, but he did it and pushed the bag and a robot from the mine-sweeping brigade arrived. It came, grabbed the bag and took it away, then they took the guy, put him in a car and left. It took 20 seconds."
Norman Kabir, 38, witness