It was the nightmare scenario European officials have been warning about for months: the deadly assault on Brussels, Belgium that killed at least thirty people and involved simultaneous, coordinated attacks on key infrastructure sites in the heart of the European Union’s (EU) administrative capital. The bloodshed sent a chill through European capitals, where officials for months have expressed deep anxieties about potential terrorist attacks by groups like ISIS.Rico says the Belgians have no sense of humor about this shit; they will come down hard on the Muslims there...
The attacks hit at least two major public sites. Shortly after rush hour at 0800, two explosions rocked the departure hall of Brussels’ Zaventem airport, the country’s international airline hub, killing at least eleven people and injuring eighty, according to Belgian Health Minister Maggie De Block. Witnesses told Belgian media they heard Arabic being spoken immediately before the blasts, while other witnesses said that the blast erupted close to a check-in desk for an American Airlines flight.
One hour later, another blast exploded in the Maelbeek Metro station in central Brussels, killing twenty people and injuring over a hundred. The Maelbeek station services the modern headquarters for the 28-nation EU, where heads of state and top officials shuttle in and out for high-level meetings at least once a week, in a complex of office buildings and conference rooms. Hundreds of civil servants work at the EU headquarters full-time, and many were commuting to work during the morning rush hour when the blast erupted shortly after 0900.
Later in the afternoon, Amaq Agency, an organization associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria said ISIS fighters opened fire at the airport before detonating their explosive belts as another fighter detonated his explosive belt on the subway.
Belgium’s government raised its terrorism-threat risk to the maximum, summoned top antiterrorism officials to a crisis meeting, and appealed to people to stay home. Officials shut the airport and Metro system, and canceled high-speed Eurostar and Thalys trains linking the city to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Reeling from the attacks, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel told reporters there were “many dead”, in what he described as “a blind, violent and cowardly attack”.
For intelligence officials and police, the attacks are a major blow, after months of their anti-terrorism operations, not only in Belgium but also across the continent. France tightened security at its airports, and Parisian officials announced that the Eiffel Tower would be lit on Tuesday evening, in Belgium’s national colors, to honor the dead.
Scores of armed police have conducted street-by-street searches in Brussels for months, in an attempt to dismantle a network of jihadists that have taken root in the capital. The country has been on high alert since the Paris attacks on 13 November 2015, which involved about ten jihadist gunmen-suicide bombers. At least five attackers came from one small corner of the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, just six stops from the Maelbeek station where the bomb exploded.
Rico's friend Kelley has a cogent comment:
WHAT
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