THE Belgian capital has long been considered the jihadist capital of Europe but that was more because of the disproportionate number of locals who have gone elsewhere, notably Syria and Paris to carry out deadly terror strikes.

The country is tiny — just 11 million citizens — but 500 of them have left to fight in Syria, mostly for Islamic State or Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda, the highest per capita of recruited fighters of any nation in Europe. Up to 40 of these jihadists were from the Brussels district of Molenbeek alone.

In recent months Brussels had been on high alert with military deployed to its spectacular gothic and baroque public plazas and tourist sites amid reports those responsible for the Paris attacks late last year were being sheltered in the city.

But now the city, the home to the European Commission and other leading institutions of the west including NATO, has itself come under attack, stunning an already beleaguered, panicked and more critically divided people.

People of foreign origin make up a remarkable 70 per cent of the capital’s population, largely from France, Turkey and Morocco, adding to an already confused picture of the country historically divided by language between French and Dutch speaking citizens.

But this attack is being seen not just as a strike on a city internally already in conflict on ethic, cultural and religious lines but because of what it represents to Europe as home to the EU.

Almost immediately after the bomb attacks yesterday, the governments in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin held emergency internal meetings to discuss the implications of the attacks on broader EU security.

Authorities have already determined close to 5000 EU nationals are posing a direct security threat to Europe after having travelled to Syria for terror training and indoctrination by Islamic State. This is not an estimated figure but 5000 listed names of those known to have gone there for training with many suspected of having already come back and plotting home grown assaults.

Europol’s director Robert Wainwright said of the threat: “Clearly, we’re dealing with a large body of mainly young men who have the potential to come back and have the potential or the intent and capability to carry out attacks we have seen in Paris.”

A new international police unit was this year opened to specifically shut down social media sites that inspire these attackers; there are 90,000 Twitter and Facebook accounts created to support ISIS, posting an incredible 100,000 Tweets a day.

In Brussels much of the animosity is directed at Molenbeek, a crammed but pretty cobbled-street district with a population of more than 100,000 people, mostly of Moroccan, Algerian, Gulf State, Turkish or North African decent.

It is predominantly Muslim, with more than 20 mosques, but it’s the prayer halls and a history of the import of 600 ardent Salafist imams since the 1980s that has inspired some youths to join jihad.


But overall the EU’s view that Belgium was the weak link in the fight against jihadism was recognised by the Prime Minister Charles Michel following revelations many of the Paris attackers were from his country, and mostly all from Molenbeek.

“This is a gigantic problem, apart from prevention we should also focus on repression,” he said, adding his nation had suffered from a “laissez-faire” attitude and were now paying the price.

Well that price is now being paid by the rest of Europe with predictions the latest assaults is to change inter-border EU travel forever.


Originally published as Why they are targeting Belgium

Islamophobe = uneducated.

issuevoter wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2016 at 2:39pm:


What's your agenda?

Karnal wrote on Apr 10^th, 2016 at 12:56am:


True, muslims, aren't a race even though they like to think they are, along with their FASCIST ANTIFIA puppets. Just ban, kill and nuke the Muselman. Sounds like a plan.

The other non muslims are ok and just fine.

WE JUST DON'T WANT MUSLIMS HERE.