Clearing Out the Plotting Jihadis

"When we checked these people, we were surprised more than once. It was men with a radical ideology and a long police history."
"Even today, there are at least 50 supporters of the Islamic state who work at the airport. They have a security badge and have access to the cockpit of a plane."
"In the past, a number of people had their badges revoked because they had IS sympathies. But clearly not everyone, especially in store personnel, cleaning services and baggage where we find the most suspicious people."
"Some people suspected of having fought in Syria came to the airport as [false tourists]. We reported their presence but we do not know if anything was done with that information."
Group police letter to the Daily Mail

In an astonishing open letter, the officers said they have warned about the terrorist sympathisers whose security badges give them access to planes, but they remain employed

Belgium was concerned that their global hub at the Brussels Airport was closed for enough time to do real financial damage to the country in the wake of the March 22 attack at the airport and the subway station that killed 32 people and seriously injured hundreds. Their concern appeared riveted on the financial loss more than introspection over security at the country's nuclear facilities which appear to have been on the radar of the jihadis associated with Islamic State.

Belgian authorities know they have a time bomb on their hands in Molenbeek and its sister ghettos. It seems that Belgian sympathy with generations of Moroccans who migrated to Belgium when they were invited fifty years ago to augment the country's workforce feel aggravated that they are not properly respected, that their prospects for advancement and employment opportunities do not match those of native Belgians, and so some take to acting out in sympathy with Islamic State.

Not their fault, then, that the country has failed their aspirations. Impossible though it is to accept, the paternalistic indifference to the vicious assaults and the ongoing potential for harm seems to be tinged with regret at upsetting the Muslim community, estranged from the broader society for reasons linked with their perceived position as outsiders. But the police do what they can, it seems, under a leadership that seems not quite as committed to rooting out the rot as they might be.

The airport police, who are threatening to go on strike because of security deficiencies, also said they have raised the issue of terrorists scouting the airport to plan possible attacks

An open letter to news media written by an unofficial police group in Brussels outlines a situation whereby they feel their government is failing in pulling its weight in the fight against Islamist jihad. They cite the fact that an estimated 50 airport workers with sympathies toward Islamic State remain employed at the Zaventem Brussels airport, with the inside track to enabling any additional attacks that may be in the works. The British Daily Mail has published a news scoop since they were the beneficiary of the letter.

Which could only have occurred if the police felt that their government was ignoring their concerns. Hoping to bring international attention to yet another intelligence failing by a lax government and its agencies, Belgium once again appears in a particularly unattractive light. Federal prosecutors confirmed a third suspect has now been charged with plotting yet another major attack on France, so this is a government polarized by inaction yet by the need to act.

The latest arrest is connected to the same investigation leading to the arrest of 34-year-old Reda Kriket in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil last week, and another suspect in the Netherlands, A French citizen, Anis Bahri, 32 also involved in the France attack plot. In the apartment occupied by Kriket French police found assault rifles, handguns and explosives, including TATP, a trademark explosive of ISIL, used in both the Paris and Brussels attacks.

In Brussels, the government claims that security at the airport will remain tight. How tight, when it does nothing about the presence of ISIL sympathizers working at the airport in various capacities? The Belgian police who wrote the accusing letter also wrote that these workers openly celebrated the airport attacks and the casualties. "When we checked these people, we were surprised more than once. It was men with a radical ideology and a long police history."

"Even today, there are at least 50 supporters of the Islamic state who work at the airport. They have a security badge and have access to the cockpit of a plane."
"In the past, a number of people had their badges revoked because they had IS sympathies. But clearly not everyone, especially in store personnel, cleaning services and baggage where we find the most suspicious people."

And to cap things off, the uncle of the two brothers who had been principals in the airport attack as suicide bombers, also worked at the airport. Khalid and Ibraham el-Bakraoui worked as cleaning staff at the airport, so they knew their way around the facility very well; where security would be, and where they wouldn't be interrupted prematurely when they set about delivering an Islamic State message to Europe.

Life Goes On : Cautiously

"We are not afraid. It is our customers who are afraid. We usually do about 4,500 euros business a day and Easter should be one of the best days. But today we will probably only make about 1,000 euros. The fruit is spoiling. We will have to throw away a lot of it."
"Those who did this [Brussels bombing] have nothing in their heads. They do not believe in God. I hope that they are done with this because it destroy us commerce."
Abdel Kaldon, Bruxelles-Midi market vendor

"This terror is all over Europe now and it is not finished in Belgium because there really is no solution to this problem. But I hope we are safe here in the market. This place is full of Muslim sellers. I don't think they want to kill their own people."
"We have to adapt to their [Muslim] culture because they are so strong in Brussels."
Anna Maas, Bruxelles-Midi flower vendor

"If you succeed in taking down one cell there will be another. If you take down three of them, ten more will rise."
"My question is: In whose name do they do this? I am an atheist but I don't know one religion that advocates this kind of general violence."
Arlette Antoine, market shopper

The fruit-and-vegetable seller is concerned with earning a living. The attacks that left so many dead and injured are truly an inconvenience. And in condemning the attackers he is effectively stating in an oblique fashion that as a Muslim, a believer, he has no truck with the kind of psychopathy that targets innocent people going about their daily lives. And failing to accommodate the living needs of others of their religion.

The flower vendor, for having lived for so many years among Muslims appears to know very little about Islam, a trusting and puzzled person for whom the violence and the hatred seems inexplicable. If she knew a little more about world affairs she would be aware, as well, that Islamists don't mind one bit killing "their own people". She observes that change is always underway, and it is Belgium that changes to accommodate the Arab population by the school calendar taking note of Ramadan.

The market shopper's disingenuous question reflects no wish to linger on the question of religion and how it impacts peoples' lives; those who become raging psychopaths and those who become their helpless victims. A state of indifference, an unwillingness to view the reality of her life and those around her as the malign influence of a totalitarian religion infuses her community with a pathology of hatred that no number of arrests will serve to quash.

Belgian authorities have taken steps to see that rock concerts, sport matches and even a March Against Fear are all temporarily postponed or cancelled, for fear that terrorists will strike again in the crowded venues so beloved of assassins looking for maximum impact, making their martyrdom well worthwhile. Belgium little envisioned the future when it undertook to respond to a manpower shortage a half century earlier by convincing Moroccans their future lies in Europe.



In the market a Flemish man who withholds his name waxes eloquent that his government "must be more severe with those who commit some crimes or talk about doing it. Until now we have been far too tolerant. We should help people but we should not always behave like we are Santa Claus", he states. At a time Santa Claus needed all those helpers to get the toys to deserving children. Presumably, the helpers have turned to their own enterprise of persuading non-Muslims they deserve to convert to Islam.

In the marketplace, when asked, Moroccan-born Belgians emphasize that Islam is a religion of peace. The attacks killed a Moroccan family, they state pointedly, so they too have suffered, as does the Moroccan man who lost one of his limbs in one of the blasts. "This complicates our lives. Of course some people change their opinions about us. We know this. It is really sad", Yassine Elyazildi, said.

"This market is empty right now People are not buying our fruit. They are not buying any meat or fish or clothes from anyone else, either. It really has been this way since the Paris attacks last fall. I understand why people are afraid to go down into the Metro now. This place could be a target, too. It is a big market. But life continues."

A Base for Islamic Barbarity

"A few years ago it was the pensioners going, who wanted the Israeli sun. Now it is young people with children. They are scared."
"I never thought I would have to hide a Jewish newspaper on the metro. When my grandson comes out of the school, he knows to put his kippah in his pocket. He asks me, why do they hate us? I say, oh, it’s a long story."
"It is a painful thing. I am a real Belgian – my country, my culture and my friends are here."
"My daughter never, never, never thought to leave. Now, she says of her little boy, what is his future here? We don’t feel safe."
"They [Belgian authorities] are afraid of this [Muslim] community. The Belgians are a very nice people. That’s the problem."
Betty Dan, Jewish community organizer, Brussels

      A Jewish boy stands with flowers in front of an Israeli flag and flowers laid in front of the Jewish Museum in Brussels, where four people were murdered by a gunman in 2014  Photo: AFP/GETTY

"Jews are praying at home. Some of them are planning to leave. People realise there is no future for Jews in Europe."
Rabbi Avraham Guigui, Brussels' Grand Synagogue

"I grew up in Argentina and experienced some anti-Semitism, but compared to what my children go through in Europe in 2015, it is incomparable."
"If I count my own experience, the insults and violent actions seem to come from people who curse me with Allahu Akhbar, or some Arabic insult."

"We see people are targeted for being Jewish in the streets all the time. It is a war of ideas." 
"I do hear around me this idea coming over and over: that we should not think of Brussels or Europe as a long-term strategy for our children."
Rabbi Avi Tawil, director, European Jewish Community Centre

As increasing migrations of Arabs and Muslims moved into Europe, a concomitant increase in anti-Semitism arose, so what is occurring now is not of recent vintage, but what has changed is that the anti-Semitism has become more overtly raging, and accompanied on occasion by vicious and sometimes lethal attacks on Jews in Europe. And Belgium has experienced  more than its due share, reflective of the number of Muslims known to be Islamist jihadists.

Rabbi Tawil tells of his experience of a decade earlier when someone approached him to enquire his baby's age as the rabbi was pushing the little boy in his stroller. The Rabbi's response elicited a surprising rejoinder: "Allah willing, he will be dead soon". This first encounter led to more of the same, only they have become more threatening as time goes by. He now has four children and his concern is for their safety.

The Grand Synagogue in Brussels closed its doors for the first time since the Second World War, leaving people to pray in their own homes at Shabbat [the Jewish Sabbath], when earlier in the month Belgian troops in armoured cars patrolled the streets, reflecting anticipation of an "imminent" terrorist attack.

Belgian Jews have reason to be concerned since they have been specifically targeted in the past. An Jew-hating Islamist returned from jihad in the Middle East attacked an orthodox school in Toulouse, France, shooting to death a rabbi and three Jewish children, in 2012. A Frenchman of Algerian descent rampaged at a Jewish museum in Brussels in May of 2014, killing four people.

November of 2014 saw a rabbi in Antwerp stabbed and in January of 2015 yet another Islamist murdered four shoppers at a Paris kosher store, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The government of Belgium has statistics showing that 130 anti-Semitic incidents occurred last year, a fifty percent increase over the year before.

Police storm the Kosher supermarket where terrorists killed four  Photo: Vantagenews.com

There is a lot of explaining to do, although root causes and effects are well enough known. Belgium’s security services and its faint-hearted politicians are the subject both internally and internationally of intense scrutiny over how the city, and most especially the tiny commune of Molenbeek became an incubator of a series of terrorist plots. The puzzle to outsiders is how the government could turn a blind eye to extremism.

Accusations also come from within as well, when last week Karl Vanlouwe, a leading Flemish politician, pointed the finger of blame at socialist MPs for indulging radical networks with "extreme tolerance", in the process turning Brussels into a "base for Islamic barbarism."