Category: Terror War

Reuters reports that a security guard for a nuclear plant was killed for his security badge;

The French language Derniere Heure (DH) newspaper reported the security guard’s badge was de-activated as soon as it was discovered he had been shot dead in the Charleroi region of Belgium and his badge stolen.

An updated Reuters article says that the Belgian government denies those claims;

[T]he local prosecutor on Saturday ruled out any militant link.

The Charleroi prosecutor’s office also denied media reports that his security pass had been stolen and been de-activated as soon as investigators raised the alarm, public broadcaster VTM said.

The UK’s Daily Mail reports that the guard, Didier Prospero, was found dead in his bathroom by his children when they returned home from school;

It had been feared the murder may be part of an ISIS plot to attack the facility and release radioactive waste into the atmosphere.

Or, the terrorists could have been planning to steal radioactive material to create a so-called dirty bomb.

Also, it is possible the terrorists wanted to sabotage a critical piece of machinery and cause the plant to meltdown, leading to a critical release of radioactive material.

Sebastien Berg, spokesman for the federal agency responsible for Belgium’s nuclear industry said they were fearful of a bomb exploding inside a plant or terrorists conducting a 9/11-style attack using a hijacked aircraft.

According to the New York Times, several of the employees at the nuclear plant were stripped of their security badges and sent home.

The Daily Mail article says that two former employees of the Belgian nuclear plant in Doel were fighting for ISIS in Syria.

One of the men, reportedly known as Ilyass Boughalab, is believed to have been killed in Syria, while the second served a short prison sentence in Belgium for terror-related offences in 2014.

With an extensive understanding of nuclear facilities, the convict’s short jail sentence has raised further questioned of the Belgian security services as well as fears he may have passed on important knowledge about the sites to the terrorist group.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Belgian police shot another terrorist in his getaway stick as he was attempting to board a tram with his lethal load.

A Belgian government official described the captured man as a “big fish” and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel canceled a planned event with Secretary of State John Kerry just as the Schaerbeek operation began, officials said.

Cellphone videos taken by bystanders showed a man with a backpack lying on the ground at a tram station, as a bomb-disposal robot approached him.

Several witnesses, who were in their homes at the time of the operation, said they heard two gunshots as police opened fire on the man who refused to lie down and hand over his bag. He was shot in the leg and then police took him away, the witnesses said.

I’m guessing that Muslim Lives Matter will have something to say about that arrest. Other reports say that he was complying ith the police, but then they just decided to shoot him anyway. I’m not sure that folks in this country would stand for a bomb-robot searching a criminal here in the US. ACLU would have conniption fits. Five other terrorists have been arrested in Brussels along with this limping unfortunate fellow.

The French have been busy, too according to US News;

[Radio Télévision Belge Francophone] says the operation was in coordination with the arrest in France on Thursday of Reda Kriket, whom authorities had been looking for since January for his suspected connection to the November attack in Paris. Kriket and other suspects in the Nov. 13 attacks were convicted in absentia last year for terrorist activities.

What I find to be amazing about our European cousins is that they’re real good at rounding up criminals after a terrorist attack – as if they know right where all of the guys are suddenly. More than likely, they were being “watched” weeks ago – like watching them has ever prevented a terrorist attack. But, if you decide that you want to criticize the Europeans, you’ll draw the ire of our own John Kerry;

Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in Brussels on Friday in a hastily organized visit after his trip to Moscow, said that “carping” about Belgium’s shortcomings “is a little bit frantic and inappropriate.”

The Belgian Justice and Interior Ministers both offered their resignations before the smoke had cleared at the airport. They admitted their shortcomings. “Frantic and inappropriate” is what I’d call John Kerry showing up while the rubble is still bouncing.

An unnamed wife of an US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel was killed in the assault, by the way, according to Fox News.

Fox News also reported that the US announced that we took out an ISIS paymaaster in Syria in retaliation.

The Associated Press reports that terrorists who have been released from Guantanamo’s detainee center went on to kill Americans;

Paul Lewis, the Pentagon’s special envoy for Guantanamo detention closure, declined to provide the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee with details. He would not say whether the incidents occurred before or after President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

“What I can tell you is unfortunately there have been Americans that have died because of (Guantanamo) detainees,” Lewis said during an exchange with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

“When anybody dies, it is tragedy and we don’t want anybody to die because we transfer detainees,” Lewis said.

[…]

“There are unfortunately going to be acts of terrorism, probably whether the facility is opened or closed,” [Lee Wolosky, the State Department’s special envoy for Guantanamo closure] said. “The proper analysis is, ‘What are the risks of keeping it open in light of the very obvious use of that facility as a propaganda tool,’ which, frankly, you should not have to question.”

So, why even fight terror at all? It’s going to happen no matter what we do, so let’s just throw up our hands and do nothing. We can use that money to give everyone free college, if they can survive the experience.

This past weekend, Belgian police arrested Salah Abdeslam who was involved in the planning for the Paris bombings earlier this year. Today, bombs have been detonated at the main airport and subway stations in Brussels, according to the New York Times;

The explosions killed at least 13 people, according to news agencies. While the causes of the blasts were not yet clear, they set off meetings about terrorism throughout Europe.

[…]

The attacks put the Belgian capital in a state of virtual lockdown. All flights were canceled for the day. All subway, tram and bus travel was shut down. Eurostar canceled its trains connecting Brussels with Paris and London. Cellphone lines were jammed as panicked travelers and Belgians tried to make calls.

According to Reuters, the airport attack was the work of a suicide bomber;

A witness said he heard shouts in Arabic shortly before two blasts struck the packed airport departure lounge. Pictures on social media showed smoke rising from the terminal building through shattered windows and passengers fleeing down a slipway, some still hauling their bags.

All public transport in Brussels was shut down, as it was in London during 2005 militant attacks on the underground that killed 52. A further 225 soldiers were sent into the city and the Belgian Crisis Centre, clearly wary of a further incident, appealed to the population: “Stay where you are”.

The media is now reporting that 15 were killed in the attacks. Belgian government officials are saying that they expected the attack for several weeks. I’m sure the victims are grateful that the attacks were not unexpected.

Fox News reports that Salah Abdeslam, who was involved in the planning of the attacks in Paris earlier this year, was captured by Brussels, Belgium police the other day after they wounded him in his leg as he charged them while he was surrounded. Reports are that he was receiving support from the Muslim community in Europe, more so than any support he got from ISIS. Searching his apartment, they found more evidence that he was planning more attacks from Brussels;

Salah Abdeslam had claimed that “he was ready to restart something from Brussels, and it’s maybe the reality,” Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said.

Reynders gave credence to the suspect’s claim because “we found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons in the first investigations, and we have seen a new network of people around him in Brussels.”

[…]

Interpol also has called on European countries to be vigilant at their borders, saying Abdeslam’s accomplices may try to flee after his capture. The international police agency recommended closer checks at borders, especially for stolen passports. Many of the Nov. 13 attackers and accomplices traveled on falsified or stolen documents

Belgium and France have much tougher gun laws than we do in the United States, American leftists drool at the level of control those laws would offer them here, yet terrorists seem to be able to move around their weapons around and employ those weapons against innocents fairly easily. If only we could get criminals to obey the laws.

CNN reports that there were “a lot of weapons when he was captured;

“He was ready to restart something in Brussels,” said Reynders, speaking at the German Marshall Fund’s Brussels Forum. “And it’s maybe the reality because we have found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons, in the first investigations and we have found a new network around him in Brussels.”

Maybe they need new laws.