On Tuesday (22/3/16) the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) carried out triple terror attacks in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. These attacks killed 31 people and wounded 230 more.
Yesterday (24/3/16) Interior Ministers of European Union (EU) member states met in Brussels at the EU HQ just metres from the Maelbeek underground rail (Metro) station that had been the target of one of the attacks. With this being the third mass casualty terror attack ISIL have launched against the EU in seven months from Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels it is unlikely that Belgium would have been at all popular at that meeting.
In fact I get the impression that the Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon offered his resignation yesterday morning in an attempt to avoid having to attend the meeting. It didn't work.
It seems though that the meeting did though finally spur the Belgians into some form of action. Last night and this morning they have carried out several police raids that have arrested seven suspects. There have also been raids in France and Germany capturing a further three suspects. However at this point it is not clear how closely linked the French and German arrests are to the Molenbeek network.
Although these raids are certainly better than the previous seven months of nothing I remain worried that the Belgians have still not gone far enough.
We are currently in the midst of the US Presidential campaign and the EU is still in the grips of the refugee crisis the wars against Syria and Iraq have created. As such I'm hesitant to talk about Belgium's problems because I know anything I say will be wilfully mis-interpreted and leapt on for political gain.
For example Poland immediately responded to the Brussels attacks by announcing it will be closing its doors to refugees. This is despite all the attackers being identified as Belgian citizens.
Therefore I should start by pointing out that many, many EU nations have large immigrant populations without any problem. For example in the UK you've got a large Pakistani Muslim community in Bradford and a large Indian Hindu population in Southall. There's also a large Australian population in west London although for them it's more like returning home after finally being released from prison.
To an outsider these areas can seem a little strange and places you wouldn't normally go. However that is due to a casual lack of shared interests rather than any hostility to outsiders. They're certainly not "No-go Zones." If those areas do start to challenge shared British values then we have strong institutions such as local government, the police and courts to keep them in check.
That is actually why I find this current government's obsession with devolution slightly worrying although I think that's a topic for another day.
Along with possibly Gothernburg in Sweden Brussels and in particular the Molenbeek neighbour has a very serious problem. As an example Saleh Abdeslam - the ringleader of the November 13th (13/11/15) Paris Massacres - was able to shelter there for many months despite being the most wanted man in Europe. Then when Abdeslam was finally arrested last Friday (18/3/16) local residents attacked the police with rocks and petrol bombs in an effort to protect him.
Following Tuesday's (22/3/16) attacks Belgian's were asked to pray for the victims as part of three days of national mourning. Many Mosques refused saying that they would only pray for the Muslim's killed. As far as we knew at the time the only Muslims killed were the attackers. At the impromptu memorial that has sprung up at the Place de la Bourse Belgian Muslims have come along to tear up and otherwise deface the Israeli flag while the flag of mockery continues to be allowed to fly in pride of place at the memorial's centre.
At the risk of getting by urban geography hat on I would say that the main problem has been the lack of an integrated housing policy. Regardless of religion or race this always leads to ghettoisation which destroys community cohesion. It's actually a particular problem in the US although it rarely applies to America's relatively small Muslim population.
The problems this is known to create raises serious questions about the UK government's attempts to scrap housing integrating through things like the Housing Benefit cap. However again I think that's a topic for another day.
Belgium's more urgent problem though is that over the past five years it's government have been enthusiastic supporters of the wars against Syria and elsewhere.
As such they, along with much of the western media, having been deliberately pumping the heads of their young Muslim populations full of lies about particularly the war on Syria. This has been done in an effort to radicalise those young Muslims so they would go off an fight for groups such as ISIL in order to violently crush the democratic revolutions Tunisia and Egypt threatened to spread across the region.
The biggest mistake Belgium made though was thinking that because it had recruited them it somehow owed these young terrorists a debt. So rather than just accepting that pledging allegiance to ISIL meant you have given up any other citizenship you may have held in order to take your chances against the Kurdish guns Belgium has been welcoming these terrorists back. They don't even seem to be monitoring their movements let alone jailing them.
As a result of these factors ISIL do seem to enjoy deep support within certain areas of Belgian society.
This may not produce a large number of people who are prepared to carry out terrorist attacks themselves but it can produce a large number of people who are prepared to provide logistical support for people who are. This includes hiding suspects and using property for the production and storage of weaponry. As such I'm not convinced that simply rounding up half a dozen suspects will succeed. After all replacements can be provided from Syria to the support network.
In terms of what exactly I think needs to be done I am annoyingly prevented from just publishing that on the Internet. Having with the Belgian military having deployed to Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission they should already know. After all they've done it thousands of times before.
This of course raises an interesting question about civil liberties. After all the US' first reaction to the Brussels attacks seemed to be unconfined glee that they now had something that could be used to force the EU to adopt the controversial Airline Passenger Name Records (PNR) spy database. The UK responded by announcing that it was expanding British spy agencies staff by around 1,900 to take advantage of the new "Snoopers Charter" surveillance powers.
Therefore the question is; Do we permanently take some civil liberties off everybody or temporarily take all civil liberties of a small group of people who represent a significant threat. And then apologise for treating them as human garbage these past five years.
Again though I should point out that I'm talking about things like the temporary and limited lifting of protections against search and seizure in line with a state of emergency. I'm certainly not talking about the sort enhanced interrogation techniques that seem almost indistinguishable from torture.
Belgium in particular has extensive civil liberty protections that would seem odd to most democratic countries on an everyday basis. Let alone during a state of emergency. For example Belgian authorities are not allowed to search private homes between the hours of 21:00 and 05:00. I think you can see that there's a lot of difference between suspending that restriction and starting to waterboard suspects.
Then of course there is the case of Saleh Abdeslam himself. During his arrest on Friday (18/3/16) Abdeslam received a non-life threatening gunshot wound to his leg. As they didn't want to cause him any discomfort or distress this meant that police were only able to interview him for a single hour in the four days between his arrest and Tuesday's (22/3/16) bombings. In my experience using pre-existing injuries to induce a fragile psychological state is page one of the police interrogation handbook. The spies of course are able to take things much further.
Abdeslam actually seems to be quite interested in this civil liberties debate. Almost immediately after his arrest he announced his intention to refuse extradition to France. Based on the assumption that this wouldn't in any way impact on the way he was interrogated I didn't consider this a major issue. It did though raise a few eyebrows that he would be afforded this luxury during a state of emergency. Following Tuesday's (22/3/16) attacks Abdeslam has indicated that he will accept extradition. This seems calculated to avoid a backlash against Belgium's civil liberties in order to protect his wider network.
The other priority in response to the Brussels attacks is of course the need to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter. This would make the attacks on Belgium an attack on all NATO members and make the defeat of ISIL non-optional for all NATO members. Sadly the US still seems to be resisting this move. Today US Secretary of State visited Brussels for a sum total of five hours. When he said; "We will not be intimidated. We will not be deterred" you were left wondering whether he was addressing ISIL or the people putting pressure on the US to defeat ISIL.
For his part US President Barack Obama has still not seen the Brussels attacks as reason for breaking off from his holiday. Speaking in Argentina he attempted to justify this position by claiming that it was better not to give ISIL the satisfaction of having him react. I am very familiar with this argument. In fact it is the advice I gave to Obama during the spate of ISIL hostage/beheading videos in late 2014/early 2015.
What was happening there is that ISIL would release a video showing a hostage that they were threatening to kill if certain demands were not met. They would then release a video showing the hostage being killed. Under those circumstances it was very important for world leaders such as Obama not to react. This was to send the message to ISIL of; "Kill your hostages or don't kill you hostages. It makes no difference to us." In sending that message you were removing ISIL's incentive to kill hostages.
I almost can't believe that I am having to explain that the Paris Massacres and the Brussels attacks are entirely different from a hostage negotiation. Rather than trying to engage us in a negotiation these attacks were carried out to simply send the message that ISIL can come into our house and attack us. By not reacting Obama is sending the message that he's not even going to try and stop them. This will only encourage ISIL to do it more because they're allowed to get away with.
In offering this false justification Obama actually cited the April 15th 2013 (15/4/13) Boston Marathon bombings as an example. It is widely accepted that this was carried out by the US as a threat to Russia that if it continued to oppose ISIL then the US would assist with terror attacks against the 2014 Winter Olympics. It was also done to pique interest in Rihanna's 2013 Diamonds World Tour.
Rihanna is currently on her first tour since the Diamonds Tour. Fortunately everyone in political circles has been able to ignore it up until now. However with Obama reminding everyone of Rihanna in the context of the Brussels attacks that may become more difficult. So by attempting to increase everyone's workload while reminding everyone of the US' longterm support for ISIL Obama's response actually seems quite aggressive towards the victims.
Unfortunately the US seems to be unable to stick to Obama's "Dinadu Nuffin' Doctrine." Today they are claiming they killed Abdul Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli - ISIL Finance Minister and second-in-command - in air-strike this week. This seems to stem from the cynical belief that if the US can grab the headlines by killing a high-profile terrorist no-one will notice that they're not really doing anything to defeat ISIL.
As the months drag on into years this approach is becoming a more serious problem. In the absence of a more concrete plan to defeat them ISIL are now starting to fragment in such a way that could make them impossible to defeat. As such rather than speeding up that process it would probably be better for the US to do nothing in response to the Brussels attacks and just learn to accept the criticism that brings.
After all if they believe in what they're doing is right a few insults shouldn't matter.
On the topic of US politics ISIL yesterday released another propaganda video. Although I've not seen it I gather then 9 minute recording was simply gloating over the Brussels attacks with footage cropped from the news coverage. At the end it featured an audio recording of presumptive US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump describing Brussels as a horror show.
This stems from a Democrat Presidential debate on December 19th 2015 (19/12/15) in which Hillary Clinton claimed that ISIL were using Trump as a recruitment tool in their videos. As ISIL weren't using Trump in their recruitment videos this left Hillary extremely foolish and seeming to living in the same alternate reality as Barack Obama.
So on January 4th (4/1/16) Al-Shabaab - the Islamist terror group based in Somalia - specially produced a propaganda video featuring Donald Trump in order to take the pressure off Hillary Clinton. This latest ISIL video seems to be a continuation of that theme.
So yeah, ISIL are now actively campaigning for Hillary Clinton.
17:25 on 25/3/16 (UK date).
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