Here Come the Cat Pics.

On Friday (18/3/16) a US Marine was killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq's Kurdish north.

Unlike the US Special Forces operator who was killed in a raid on May 16th 2015 (16/5/15) this Marine was killed in an attack on the base where he was stationed. The attack confirmed the existence of the base which had been constructed as part of an expansion of the US' ground operations in Iraq.

Also on Friday Saleh Abdeslam, the alleged mastermind of the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres was finally captured by police in Brussels, Belgium. He remains in custody in Belgium awaiting extradition to France.

Taken individually either one of these developments will take time to explain fully. For example the US Marine's death seems to have been initially reported as an accident aboard a US aircraft carrier stationed in the Atlantic. However occurring at almost the same time they seem to have triggered quite a lot of frantic discussion. Particularly about the Marquis de Lafayette - the US' oldest French ally.

Annoyingly in order to put any of these events in their proper context I need to cover them all at the same time. Simply trying to focus on any one in isolation just isn't going to work. Due to the inflexibility of my life I'm not going to be able to make time to do that today.

However there is a reason why I have not prioritised the capture of Saleh Abdeslam above more recent events this weekend. Unlike with the March 2013 Boston Marathon bombings or even the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris we know that Abdeslam is part of a much wider organisation. 

Therefore his captured doesn't really alter the current terror threat in any way. If anything it slightly increases it in the immediate term by creating the risk his co-conspirators may seek revenge.

Also I don't really want to be getting into giving a running commentary of the case. As an example of why since the Paris Massacres certain news outlets have taken pleasure in speculating that Abdeslam chickened out of conducting a suicide bombing himself and had been shunned by ISIL as a result. 

Almost immediately after his capture Abdeslam confirmed this story to investigators. This is exactly the sort of lie he would make up to protect a wider ISIL network in Europe. However I gather that now he's been questioned for a few days his story has begun to change.

Today several terrorist bombings have struck the Belgian capital Brussels. Two occurred in the terminals of the Zaventem Airport while a third struck the Maelbeek underground rail (Metro) station. This is main Metro station serving the institutional buildings of the European Union (EU) in Brussels.

As this still early stage details are scarce. However the nicest thing I can say about the situation is that much of the talk over the previous couple of days has been about chemical weapons - particularly pre-cursor agents for VX Gas which is a very nasty nerve agent.

In terms of the next step; You remember all those things I said need to be done following the Paris Massacres that weren't done? Well they need to be done.

The main one of these of course is for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to convene an emergency meeting to invoke it's Article 5 mutual defence clause.

If US President Barack Obama can't be bothered to return from his Caribbean mini-break or again tries to block the invocation of Article 5 then I'm inclined to think that he's already overstayed his welcome.

13:25 on 22/3/16 (UK date).