Gingrich: When will our leaders realize we are at war? Fox News via You Tube, March 23, 2016
Posted tagged ‘Brussels terror attack’
Gingrich: When will our leaders realize we are at war?
March 24, 2016Visit brussels: #CallBrussels
March 24, 2016Brand’s Vietnam | Visit brussels: #CallBrussels, via You Tube, posted March 21, 2016
(The video was posted prior to the terror attack on March 22nd. — DM)
Awakening from denial
March 24, 2016Awakening from denial, Israel Hayom, Ariel Bolstein, March 24, 2016
In the hours after the Brussels attacks, Belgium was a country in shock. The train stations were flooded with uniformed security forces, some of them soldiers in full combat gear. But alongside their impressive equipment, there was an obvious lack of purpose in their deployment on the ground. They too did not know what to do, nor what to defend against.
The next day, this feeling seemed to grow stronger. The authorities appeared to be doing what was expected of them: They published the terrorists’ names, they carried out arrests, they declared three days of mourning, and they made statements full of determination and national unity. But nobody dared to ask aloud: Determination against what? And unity in the face of whom?
High school students stood for a moment of silence in the Market Square in Bruges. Passers-by scribbled messages of strength, love and peace on the pavement outside the Brussels Stock Exchange. But not a word was said about those who are not interested in love and peace.
As befits a country that loves visual expression (Belgian comics, anyone?), Belgian media responded to the attacks with a wave of caricatures and pictures that broadcast a message of unity. All the Belgian icons were recruited to the mission, from Tintin to the “peeing boy” statue and even Belgium’s famous potato fries. In one of the pictures, a figure holds a sign that reads, “We are all Belgium,” joined by a bunch of other figures holding signs that read, “We are all Paris,” “We are all Mali,” and “We are all Ankara.” The phrase “We are all Israel” was nowhere to be found. This total invisibility of Israeli terror victims was, of course, no coincidence.
There was also a notable absence of the words “radical Islam” in local media reports, despite the fact that the attacks were not random. The establishment prefers not to call the problem by its name. One could still think that the victims’ lives were claimed by some kind of natural disaster or chance occurrence. For years, political correctness has blinded Europeans, including the Belgians, and silenced every voice that didn’t toe the line.
Citizens saw more and more robes and burqas in the streets of Europe’s cities, but the elites sent out the message that everything was fine. Incitement flowed from the local mosques, but it was interpreted as the gentle breeze of multiculturalism. Western values began to retreat, and in many places, radical Islam dominated. Suddenly, even the police began to fear conflict with the thugs in the Muslim neighborhoods — and these saw that as a victory, a sign that they could get away with anything. First, there were attacks against the Jews. A cultural war brewed right under the noses of Belgium’s citizens, but they refused to take a closer look, despite the pungent odor of hatred that rose from the nests of radical Islam inside Europe.
And now, when the problem has gotten out of control, it seems that Belgium’s opinion leaders are still burying their heads in the sand. But that sand is no longer as pleasant and welcoming as it once was, and the echoes of the blasts can be heard through it. Yet, the sad reality is even more painful. The average person is starting to back away from the political correctness that does not provide security. Moreover, the average person is starting to understand that the enemy is not figurative — it has a name, and it subscribes to the ideology of radical Islam, even if those words are censored by the media.
“We are in shock, but this shock has helped us understand you, the Israelis,” a Brussels train conductor told me quietly after asking where I was from. Perhaps this is the beginning of the awakening from denial.
Hashtag: We Are Neville Chamberlain
March 24, 2016Hashtag: We Are Neville Chamberlain, Front Page Magazine, Ann Coulter, March 24, 2016
Immigration is the new “No Nukes/Save the Whales” movement, only with more body bags.
After the mass murder committed by Muslims in San Bernardino, which came on the heels of the mass murder committed by Muslims in Paris, Donald Trump proposed a moratorium on Muslim immigration.
Explaining the idea on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he talked about how Muslim immigration was infecting Europe: “Look at what happened in Paris, the horrible carnage. … We have places in London and other places that are so radicalized that the police are afraid for their own lives. We have to be very smart and very vigilant.”
Trump’s reference to London’s no-go zones was met with a massive round of sneering, which is what passes for argument in America these days. Jeb! said Trump was “unhinged,”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called him “foolish,” and former vice president Dick Cheney said Trump’s remarks went “against everything we stand for and believe in.” (Based on Trump’s crushing primary victories, Cheney is no longer qualified to say what “we” believe in.)
To prove Trump wrong, reporters called British authorities and asked them: Are you doing your jobs? They responded, Why, yes we are! The head of London’s police said, “Mr. Trump could not be more wrong,” and London mayor Boris Johnson called Trump’s comments “utter nonsense.”
Within days, however, scores of rank-and-file London policemen begged to differ with their spokesmen, leading to the following headlines:
UK Daily Mail: ‘TRUMP’S NOT WRONG — WE CAN’T WEAR UNIFORM IN OUR OWN CARS’: Five Police Officers Claim Donald Trump Is Right About Parts of London Being So ‘Radicalised’ They Are No-Go Areas
The Sun: ‘THERE ARE NO-GO AREAS IN LONDON’: Policemen Back Trump’s Controversial Comments
UK Daily Express: ‘TRUMP IS RIGHT!’ Police Say Parts of Britain Are No-Go Areas due to ISIS Radicalisation
Then, in January of this year, Trump talked specifically about the Muslim invasion of Brussels on the Maria Bartiromo show. “There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. … There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Sharia law … There is something bad going on.”
The New York Times headlined a story on the interview: “Donald Trump Finds New City to Insult: Brussels.” News is no longer about communicating information; it’s about imparting an attitude. Trump is rude, so whether he’s right is irrelevant. As the saying goes, “Better dead than rude.”
Indignant Belgians took to Twitter, the Times reported, “deploying an arsenal of insults, irony and humor, including images of Belgium’s beloved beer and chocolate.” Liberals have gone from not understanding jokes to not understanding English. When Trump talked about unassimilated Muslim immigrants demanding Sharia law, I don’t think he was knocking Belgium’s beer and chocolate.
Rudi Vervoort, the president of the Brussels region (who evidently survived this week’s bombing), rebuked Trump, saying, “We can reassure the Americans that Brussels is a multicultural city where it is good to live.”
After multiculturalism struck this week, Vervoort said, “I would like to express my support to the victims of the attacks of this morning …” Twitter bristled with supportive hashtags, the Belgian flag and professions of solidarity. The Times editorialized: “Brussels, Europe, the world must brace for a long struggle against this form of terrorism.”
All this would be perfectly normal if we were talking about an earthquake or some other natural disaster — something humans have no capacity to prevent. But Muslims pouring into our countries and committing mass murder isn’t natural at all. It’s the direct result of government policy.
It’s as if the government were dumping rats in our houses, and then, whenever someone died of the plague, those same government officials issued heartfelt condolences, Twitter lit up with sympathetic hashtags and the Times editorialized about effective rodent control, but no one ever bothered to say, Hey! Maybe the government should stop putting rats in our houses!
When people are killing in the name of their religion, it’s not an irrelevancy to refuse to keep admitting more practitioners of that religion.
But this is the madness that has seized Europe and America — a psychosis Peter Brimelow calls “Hitler’s revenge.”
Apparently, what we have learned from Hitler is not: Don’t kill Jews. To the contrary, the only people who openly proclaim their desire to kill Jews are … Muslims.
What we’ve learned from Hitler is not: Don’t attempt to seize hegemonic control over entire continents. The only people vowing to conquer the world are … Muslims.
And what we’ve learned from Hitler is not: Beware violent uprisings of angry young men. The only hordes of violent, angry young men are, again … Muslims. (And Trump protesters.)
But instead of learning our lesson and recoiling with horror at this modern iteration of Nazism, we welcome the danger with open arms — because the one and only lesson we’ve learned from Hitler is: DON’T DISCRIMINATE!
Terror in Brussels intelligence: What German mainstream media conceal the citizens of backgrounds
March 23, 2016error in Brussels intelligence: What German mainstream media conceal the citizens of backgrounds, Koop Online, March 23, 2016
(H/t Joopklepzeiker. This is a web translation. I have tried to make it more intelligible, but it’s still flawed. Perhaps the ideas come through. — DM)
The latest Brussels terrorist attacks have many people extremely distressed. Western security circles know thatParis and Brussels are only testing for an upcoming series of much larger terrorist attacks that will change the state of Europe for decades.The leaders know what is being planned in the background: attacks with Iridium 192nd.
Police officers stay on high alert in Brussels on March 22, 2016, after the Belgian capital was hit by terrorist attacks, for which Islamic State has claimed responsibility. More than 30 people were killed and about 230 others were injured in the two bomb attacks at an international airport and a subway station. (Kyodo)
Exactly three weeks ago US intelligence and Washington newspaper Washington Times disclosed that Belgian security authorities in anti-terror raids have found evidence of planned attacks with “dirty bombs.” The future attack plans therefore concern large cities in France, Belgium, Great Britain – and Germany. The metropolitan areas concerned would have uninhabitable areas after such an attack for months or even years rather than weeks. What does this mean, can hardly imagine safety circuits in reality itself.
It is also clear that Islamic terrorists in the past few weeks have witnessed nuclear professionals in a number of European nuclear power stations and wanted to kidnap at least one of them.
In reported American, British and Belgian media – just no German. The Islamic state is trying for some time, a “dirty bomb” to build – and indeed in Europe . Since a few days the report leading US journals about.
Two days before the Brussels attacks also have British special forces SAS practiced how to deal with an “in case of (expected) attack on London dirty bomb could do.” Because the British expect such a terrorist attack with radioactive material now “daily” .
And in Germany it is known to reduce the risk that one but rather conceals the public. European intelligence sources have pointed out to Kopp online that in recent weeks in Iraq (as well as in Syria) multiple radioactive material was stolen from atomic testing centers, which only appeared in some later.
Thus it is also clear that the IS in recent months had contacts with unscrupulous international arms dealers who have also material for nuclear weapons and dirty bombs on offer. Since 2014 such acquisition attempts have been registered by Western intelligence agencies.
Even more: It is also known that Muslims Belgian base Kleine Brogel Airbase have spied (in Flanders in the province of Limburg), where the US kept ready in Belgium US nuclear weapons (which is hardly a Belgian site). They were inspired by reports in Belgian newspapers reported how lax the security arrangements are there.
Only in this context can be understood to say intelligence sources, why after the recent attacks immediately Brussels, Belgian nuclear power plants were first evacuated and then backed up by the Belgian Army . It is known that Muslims have spied on these to prepare an attack with nuclear materials and may want to also penetrate into the control room of a nuclear power plant.
Recently, after information of Kopp from the intelligence community in a special suitcase secure radioactive material that belonged to the Istanbul-based company SGS, was stolen.The contents: ten grams Iridium-192, which is ideal for the construction of a “dirty bomb” .
The case became public – many other similar instances are not because a news blackout was imposed. Because a “dirty bomb” would cause panic and chaos, which would no longer be manageable for a government.
However, now missing for more than 500 grams of Iridium-192, the “inexplicably gone missing” are. Western intelligence agencies are convinced that the highly hazardous material now with the influx of refugees anywhere in Germany, was transported to Belgium or France.
The recent attacks, which our interlocutors are convinced are some “exercises” of IS-groups which want to study, for example, the reaction times of Western forces for attacks with “dirty bombs”. “The practice but currently only” our interlocutor says senior circles of the security authorities.
And he claims that it long ago informal discussions between senior representatives of the backers of the IS and European governments, according to which Europeans are blackmailed with attacks such as those in Paris and Brussels, the Europeans, so its details, are more Islamic mass immigration from the Middle East and North Africa allow – or their governments are made and swept incapacitated by increasingly frequent terrorist attacks and also “dirty bombs.” The asylum industry is accordingly buffo Islamic terrorists.
”It’s only a matter of time before terrorist groups gain access to nuclear weapons, the fact that so far with still no disaster: Meanwhile, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, said. such weapons had come, “we owe pure luck.” The open borders of Angela Merkel could end very quickly the happiness of Europeans now however.
The possible expiration of a stop with “dirty bombs” (eng.):
The Obama Doctrine Applied
March 23, 2016The Obama Doctrine Applied, Power Line,
In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks in Brussels yesterday, President Obama gave a previously scheduled speech in Havana “To the People of Cuba.” The speech contrasts rather starkly with the speech suggested by Professor Carlos Eire in “The speech never given,” to the detriment of Obama’s speech.
Obama’s speech wasn’t all bad. Though full of nauseating palaver, it had a good paragraph or two. To the mostly nauseating palaver and gratuitous autobiographical reflections in the prepared text of the speech, Obama tacked on formulaic vacuities to acknowledge the morning’s events in Brussels:
Before I begin, please indulge me. I want to comment on the terrorist attacks that have taken place in Brussels. The thoughts and the prayers of the American people are with the people of Belgium. We stand in solidarity with them in condemning these outrageous attacks against innocent people. We will do whatever is necessary to support our friend and ally, Belgium, in bringing to justice those who are responsible. And this is yet another reminder that the world must unite, we must be together, regardless of nationality, or race, or faith, in fighting against the scourge of terrorism. We can — and will — defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all around the world.
That’s it. The White House posted video of Obama’s remarks on the attacks here. The video runs for 51 seconds.
Having given the speech, President Obama kept his previously scheduled date with Raul Castro to attend the Rays-Cuba baseball game in Havana. At the game Obama schmoozed with Castro. What a sickening sight. On the plus side, however, Obama didn’t throw out the opening pitch.
Obama commented on the attacks in Brussels to ESPN during the game (video below, about ten minutes). He didn’t appear to be to broken up about them.
“This is just one more example of why the entire world needs to unite against these terrorists,” Obama said. “The notion that any political agenda would justify the killing of innocent people like this is something that’s beyond the pale.” Obama imputes a simply “political agenda” to the attack. Their religious inspiration has been drained from them.
Obama explained why he attended the game as planned: “It’s always a challenge when you have a terrorist attack anywhere in the world, particularly in this age of 24/7 news coverage, you wanna be respectful and understand the gravity of the situation but the whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people’s ordinary lives.”
One of the illuminating passages in Jeffrey Goldberg’s compilation of the wit and wisdom of Barack Obama addresses the subject of terrorism. When it comes to terrorism, this is “the Obama doctrine.” Cool out and learn to live with it. His attitude is complacent. His take on ISIS to Valerie Jarrett represents it: “They’re not coming here to chop our heads off.”
Goldberg adds: “Obama frequently reminds his staff that terrorism takes far fewer lives in America than handguns, car accidents, and falls in bathtubs do. Several years ago, he expressed to me his admiration for Israelis’ ‘resilience’ in the face of constant terrorism, and it is clear that he would like to see resilience replace panic in American society. Nevertheless, his advisers are fighting a constant rearguard action to keep Obama from placing terrorism in what he considers its ‘proper’ perspective, out of concern that he will seem insensitive to the fears of the American people.”
Islam must of course be kept out of the equation. Obama hesitates to confide in us regarding the contribution of Islam to the jihad with which we are contending. We can’t be trusted to deal fairly with it. Goldberg reports that those who speak with Obama about jihadist thought say that he possesses a no-illusions understanding of the forces that drive apocalyptic violence among radical Muslims, but he has been careful about articulating that publicly, out of concern that he will exacerbate anti-Muslim xenophobia (i.e., “Islamophobia”).
The ESPN interview adds Obama’s irritated observation on the role of cable news in aggravating our concerns about terrorism. Taken together, his comments to the ESPN interviewers perfectly represent the application of the Obama doctrine on terrorism to the Brussel attacks.
Race is never far from Obama’s mind. Let me insert here this stray quotable quote from the ESPN interview (my transcription): “Now we still have a long way to go. You know, that’s true in everyday life; it’s true in our sports. You know, if you look at the number of African-American managers, if you look at the number of Latino managers, in baseball, or owners, obviously there’s still a carryover from the past.”
ISIS Takes the Capital of the European Union
March 23, 2016ISIS Takes the Capital of the European Union, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 23, 2016
The European Union was first brought into being to “safeguard” world peace. Today, the employees of the EU in Brussels were told to cower in fear in their government buildings while Islamic Jihadists once again terrorized this city whose population is already nearly a quarter Muslim.
Practicing Muslims outnumber practicing Christians in Brussels. After a search for Islamic terrorists had shut down the city, its Socialist mayor complained, “We will not live under the Islamic regime.”
But it’s too late for that. He already is. There are 300,000 Muslims in the capital of the European Union. It’s estimated that they will become the majority of the population in 14 years.
Brussels is the first outpost of ISIS in Europe. It is a doomed city that will be lost to Islam within our lifetimes. A Muslim terrorist attack in Brussels is as surprising as a car bombing in Baghdad.
Belgium’s home affairs minister announced last year that the government does not “have control of the situation in Molenbeek.” Jihadists rule in this Muslim neighborhood, which is just as much of an outpost of ISIS as anywhere in Syria or Iraq, just 12 minutes away from the European Parliament, 15 minutes away from the European Commission, 23 minutes away from NATO HQ and 22 minutes away from Brussels Airport; today’s target. ISIS doesn’t have to invade Brussels. It just has to take a short drive.
Last year during the European Parliament elections, Brussels became the site of the first terrorist attack by a returning ISIS fighter. The target was the Jewish Museum of Belgium. The Mayor of Brussels said that more diversity was the answer. Next year, Jihadists operating partly out of Brussels carried out a massacre of 130 people in Paris while shouting “Allahu Akbar” at each killing spree.
The dead included French, Belgians, Mexicans, Germans, Portuguese, Romanians and Chileans. The killers were all Muslims.
That is what diversity looks like now.
Over 500 Jihadis from Belgium are fighting with ISIS. There are nearly a hundred Jihadists back from the unholy wars in Syria living in Molenbeek in Brussels. They should be deported, but the EU would object. And so instead, the European Union and all of Europe remain under siege by the Jihadist next door.
The “organized and living Europe” of the EU’s founding Schuman Declaration isn’t aiding “civilization.” The EU is neither organized nor living. Instead it’s killing Europe and civilization. The dream of uniting Europe isn’t just dead. It’s a virulent cancer that routes hordes of angry young Muslim men from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Eritrea to loot, rape and murder their way across Europe.
At the heart of the EU’s rot in Brussels are No-Go Zones controlled by Jihadists. Despite all of Belgium’s gun laws, in Molenbeek, Jihadists buy and sell at the Great Bazaar of Kalashshnikovs. The bazaar is stocked and the terrorists move in and out of Brussels thanks to the open borders of the EU.
While the EU claims to control Europe, there is no safety, security or control even in its own capital.
Brussels’ Islam Party has elected two Muslim politicians on a platform of creating an Islamic State in Belgium. Advocates for an Islamic State that would enforce Sharia law hold elected office in Belgium.
Even if the rest of the world only pays attention when the bombs go off and knives come out in Brussels.
When the European Union was created, the foreign-born population of Belgium consisted of some 300,000 people, most of them Italians and Greeks, in a country of over eight million. Today the foreign-born population stands at 1.4 million, much of it Muslim, with a large additional population of Muslim settlers born in Belgium. Belgium once colonized. Now it is being colonized.
The capital of the European Union will be one of the first cities in Europe to fall to the invaders.
We already know how the next part goes. The broken glass will be cleaned away. The bloody wounded will be removed out of sight. The dead will be buried. An Imam will be invited to the memorial service. Everyone will wear t-shirts printed with the latest terrorist tragedy meme. The cafes will reopen. The music will play again. Couples will forget and stroll the streets.
Bureaucrats will sit down in their glass towers and draw up plans for the future of the EU in a city that will be lost in a decade. Then they will try to ignore all the heavily armed soldiers in the streets.
Islamic terrorism is not the ultimate threat. It is the real world intruding on the progressive fantasy.
16% of young Muslim men in Belgium are willing to say that they believe that terrorism is justified. But they are only the tip of the iceberg. Support for Sharia law hovers around the 60 percent mark. The former may bomb airports or shoot up museums, but it’s the latter who will destroy the country.
On the television screens, the politicians come and go talking of “youthful despair”. But the Muslim terrorists with their guns and bombs haven’t given up. It’s the Europeans who gave up.
This is not a crisis of “hopelessness”, “integration” or any of the other excuses that politicians use to explain Islamic terrorism without dropping the dreaded I-word that invokes the fearful charge of Islamophobia. The Greeks and Italians who used to do the dirty work in Belgium were not bombing subways and museums no matter how bad the “overcrowding” and “joblessness” might be.
This is not a social problem. It is a supremacist problem.
Muslim terrorism is not caused by despair, but by hope. A Muslim suicide bomber does not die out of hopelessness, but because he hopes to impose Islam and earn 72 virgins in paradise. He shouts “Allahu Akbar”, proclaiming the supremacy of his Islamic religion over Christianity, Judaism and all the rest, as he kills his victims because he believes that a different Europe is possible. An Islamic Europe.
The latest terror attack in Brussels has been called “an attack on all of Europe.” But it’s Brussels, with the insistence on open borders and open migrant policies, that is the real attack on all of Europe.
Muslim immigration is its outcome. Muslim terrorism is the outcome of Muslim immigration.
The European Union was born out of despair. Europeans lost confidence in their own nations. They opened their borders and sat on the beach while the migrant waves washed away their future.
Brussels is where Europe’s future died. It is the first real outpost of the Islamic State in Europe. It shows us Europe’s terrible future if the invasion does not end.
There are three visions in Brussels. The vision of an eternal European Union in a doomed city that will be lost sooner than Venice sinks beneath the waves. The Islamic vision of a Caliphate rising minutes away from the ponderous headquarters of the multinational European project and the vision of independent nations and peoples protecting their own borders from the invaders for the future of their children.
Take in the sight of broken glass and bloodied bodies, frightened families fleeing through the smoke, faces covered in ash, and remember that this is the outcome of the progressive vision for Europe.
This is reality intruding into the fantasies of immigration and integration where a new multicultural Europe shines forth as a beacon from Brussels to show us a better world. These people died so that you would know the truth. They were not the first and they will not be the last.
If we do not want to end up the same way, we must end Islamic immigration before it ends us.
Take Me Out to the Raul Game
March 23, 2016Take Me Out to the Raul Game, Hope n’ Change, March 23, 2016
He really did this. Also, he did “the wave” with Raul Castro.
Yesterday was the sort of horrible news day in which all of the seemingly unrelated jigsaw pieces end up belonging to one big depressing picture.
In Belgium, a number of terrorist bombs killed dozens of innocents and wounded hundreds more, including Americans. To the surprise of absolutely no one who isn’t in the Obama administration, Isis is taking credit for the explosive deaths, giving further proof that Islam is overdue to either clean house or change their slogan to “The Religion of Pieces.”
Of course, with American casualties (including a U.S. serviceman and his family) did Barack Hussein Obama turn his laser-like focus to strong anti-terrorist rhetoric and actions? He did not. He simply threw a few seconds of “thoughts and prayers, blah, blah, blah, we’ll stand with Belgium, blah, blah, blah” into his previously scripted speech to the desperately poor people of Cuba. Seriously, it’s a miracle he didn’t actually say the words “insert city name here” into his generic Hallmark sentiments.
And his actual speech in Cuba was one that Isis would have found hugely agreeable. Confirming their every assertion of American evil and imperialism, the “New Camelot” president took a long, splashy leak on the grave of the “Old Camelot” president by bringing up the Bay of Pigs invasion. He also declared “the blue waters beneath Air Force One once carried American battleships to this island — to liberate, but also to exert control over Cuba.” Hey, are we rotten bastards or what?!
Obama also gave Cuba and the United States moral equivalency of the lowest kind by sneering that both were colonized by Europeans (those despicable infidels) and “Cuba, like the United States, was built in part by slaves brought here from Africa. Like the United States, the Cuban people can trace their heritage to both slaves and slave-owners.” A simplistic, inaccurate, and belittling view of our people, history, and culture which explains his clear distaste for white Americans.
But despite the degree to which we suck, Obama said that at least our nation can take credit for accepting a seemingly unending flood of immigrants.
Because that’s worked out so frigging well for Belgium.
Oh, come one – you KNEW we were going to do something with this pathetic picture.
The Brussels airport terrorists were not suicide bombers. A jammed gun averted a mega massacre
March 23, 2016The Brussels airport terrorists were not suicide bombers. A jammed gun averted a mega massacre, DEBKAfile, March 23, 2016
Three Islamist bombers in action and their real faces
The evidence building up belies the claim by Belgian security authorities that the two brothers responsible for the Brussels outrage Tuesday, March 22, were suicide bombers. They were identified Wednesday, March 23, as Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who were known to the police.
DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources find indications that the two men got away and are still alive. They did not use explosive belts for the bombings that claimed 14 lives, injured scores and totaled the Brussels airport departure hall. But, according to the findings at the main scene of the carnage near the American Airlines desk, they detonated bombs weighing several kilos from their luggage carts, or from the floor underneath.
The massive bomb blasts and metal shrapnel thrown out in the explosion caused injuries in the lower parts of their victims’ bodies, according to the descriptions in Brussels hospital websites and social media.
An explosive belt tied to a suicide killer would have caused chest and upper limb injuries.
The taxi driver who dropped the two terrorists off at the airport reported that they refused his help for unloading their suitcases, although they were very heavy. They most likely contained the deadly bombs.
Both brothers wore a black glove on each of their left hands, apparently to conceal remote control buttons for the bombs in the carts they were pushing through the hall. But suicide bombers detonate their explosive belts by a built-in mechanism.
Despite the spreading shock effect of the airport attack, it is also becoming clear that the terrorists only accomplished the first part of their jihadist mission. The Islamic State, which approved the operation, had envisaged a much bigger atrocity. This is attested to by the discovery of three bags containing identical kits of firearms and ammunition, a bomb belt, two AK-47 automatic rifles, magazines and hand grenades – all intact and unused. The police detonated them by controlled explosion.
Those kits were concealed in advance in apparent readiness to strike the emergency teams, the medics, the security forces and the other first responders when they arrived to tend the victims of the first attack. The kits were placed at strategic points, either by an advance team of terrorist operatives masquerading as airport personnel, or a staff employee.
When investigators examined the submachine guns, they found that someone had tried to fire one of them and it jammed. This might explain why the second half of the Brussels airport atrocity, the mega-massacre, was stalled.
By sheer chance, therefore, hundreds of Belgian security officers and emergency aid personnel were saved from being trapped from three directions in a ball of fire.
Belgian police and security units have been chasing desperately, with very few intelligence clues, for a broad network of at least 20 Islamists, who must have spent months setting up the complicated Brussels operations at the airport and Metro station.
The planning would have involved exhaustive reconnaissance, the precise study of the targeted locations, arms providers, logistics, finance, communications and prepared escape routes – before the bombers went in. The two brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakraoui – misrepresented as suicide bombers – must now be considered fugitives like their companion, the third man seen on airport CCTV in a white coat and hat.
He has also been identified as Najim Laachraoui, 25, the senior ISIS bombmaker in Europe, who almost certainly took a hand in the multiple Paris attacks last November. There were conflicting reports Wednesday afternoon about his capture by Brussels police.
Abdelsalem capture laid red herring for double terror attack in Brussels
March 23, 2016Abdelsalem capture laid red herring for double terror attack in Brussels, DEBKAfile, March 22, 2016
The capture of the ISIS Paris master planner Salah Abdelsalem by Belgian anti-terror police, after four months on the run, was initially hailed as an enormous stroke of luck – that is until Tuesday, March 22. The high-profile Islamic State terrorist, who planned the triple attacks on a Paris stadium, bistro and concert hall, that left 130 people dead last November, had instructed jihadist bombers under his command to carry out deadly explosions at Brussels airport and subway on that day, while he was in custody.
He staged his capture as a trick to misdirect Belgian and French intelligence and anti-terror agencies and lull them into a state of false security.
Abdelsalem, 26, a French citizen of Moroccan origin, was the only survivor of the Paris attack five months ago. The other seven terrorists were killed, including his brother. He was finally run to ground on March 18 at his safe house in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, a notorious hotbed of jihads ideology, and taken in after a shootout with the police. The master terrorist had evaded capture by skipping across European borders, which proves little challenge for ISIS operatives on the move.
Three other suspects were also arrested in the Molenbeek raid.
French President Francois Hollande and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel took turns congratulating each other at a joint press conference which they called immediately after the Abdelselam capture. They were certain that his interrogation would yield valuable information about the arcane workings of the ISIS web across Europe and bring to light future terror plots in good time.
But DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources believe that Abdelsalem let himself be nabbed as part of a larger plot. Before he was captured, he had left instructions with a team of bombers for the attacks on Brussels international airport and the Maelbeek subway station near the European Union’s headquarters, with possibly more to come, on lines similar lines to the multiple assaults in Paris.
He relied on the French and Belgian leaders and their anti-terrorist advisers resting on their laurels, the while letting down their guard and missing the trap, before it snapped back in their faces four days later.
After the attacks, the Belgian prime minister realized that more terror might still be in store.
The Brussels twin terrorist hit was planned in detail. DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources report that the two explosions at Brussels airport were caused by suicide bombers. The discovery later of an unexploded bomb belt indicated a terror team of three (see picture).
What happened to the third bomber?
Belgian authorities are trying to disguise the fact that, while one explosion was caused by a suicide bomber in the departure hall, a second terrorist was able to reached the tarmac and detonate his bomb belt near the airliners.
They may have beaten security by using an airport staff employee to smuggle the three bomb belts into the targeted areas and conceal them, allowing the terrorists to come out clean from security checks. The third bomb belt may have been abandoned – either because the third terrorist failed to turn up, or he changed his mind at the last minute and and ran, after dropping it.
By Tuesday afternoon the death toll from the two attacks had climbed to 34 – 20 dead at the Metro station and 14 at Brussels airport, with scores of people injured, including reportedly two Israel passengers.
The scenes in the Belgian airport capital were chaotic. Terrified passengers fled in every direction in the absence of anyone in charge to provide information or guidance. Police tried to tell them to drop their hand luggage before escaping, but no one heeded them. Hundreds waited on the tarmac hopelessly for instructions until they were eventually bussed to a village outside the capital. They were stranded there, after all incoming and outgoing flights were cancelled and all public transport suspended.
Brussels, in a state of shock and confusion, found itself unwillingly dubbed the front line of Europe’s war on terror.
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