The Belgian Terror Attacks

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On March 22 the Belgian capital of Brussels was rocked by two suicide attacks. One took place at the American Airlines counter at Zaventern airport and the other took place at a nearby subway station. As of the time of this brief, at least thirty-one people were reported killed and another 270 were reported wounded. The Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility for the attacks and investigators wonder if there was a link between the attack and the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, considered the lone survivor of the Paris terror attacks last year. Belgium has acquired a reputation as a terror hotbed of Europe, with militants using Brussels and other Belgian cities as planning centers for other attacks throughout Europe and the world. The attacks will likely cause the Belgian government to bolster its security infrastructure and rethink some of its policies regarding the integration of immigrants from Islamic nations. And the attacks will likely bolster a right-wing critique of existing security policies within the European Union (EU) that they say make the continent more vulnerable to attack.

This topic brief will highlight some of the major terminology and people that extempers should know related to these attacks, explain why Belgium is struggling to deal with terrorism, and note some ways that Belgian authorities are likely to respond to the recent attacks.

Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.

Important Terminology

Salah Abdeslam: Alleged terrorist with links to the Islamic State that was recently arrested in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels. He was part of the Paris attacks last November, but managed to elude authorities for more than four months. Prior to the Paris attacks he was a petty drug dealer and he is reported to have played a significant role in the Paris attacks by transporting guns, explosives, and militants throughout Europe. After his capture, Belgian officials feared that another attack was coming but they lost the race against time to prevent it.

Europol: The abbreviation of the European Police Force. It is the law enforcement agency of the European Union (EU) and seeks to combine the various security services of members states under one umbrella. One of the areas of joint concern is terrorism, but the body is plagued by several weaknesses, most notably how cooperation with it is voluntary. After the Belgian attacks, European politicians are wondering whether it and other anti-terror units such as the European Counter Terrorism Center need to be given more powers to thwart attacks.

Jan Jambon: The current Interior Minister of Belgium. The “portfolio” of interior minister is an important one in European nations as interior ministers are responsible for a nation’s security services, intelligence apparatus, and emergency management. Jambon offered to resign after the recent attacks, but Prime Minister Charles Michel refused to accept it. Jambon has admitted that Belgium has not invested a great deal of money into its security services in recent years and that this has put the country at significant risk.

Molenbeek: One of the nineteen municipalities of Brussels. It has been considered one of the locations of significant terror activity in Europe in recent years. Abdeslam was captured here two weeks ago and it was where the Paris and Brussels attackers lived. The city has a population that is 40% Muslim (many of whom are descendants of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants that came to Belgium during the 1960s and 1970s) and right-wing critics say that left-wing leadership (the city was governed by Socialist Philippe Moureaux between 1993-2012) hindered local anti-terror operations. The municipality does have a significant problem with discontented youth, though, as evidenced by its high unemployment and high crimes rates, as well as an underground drug economy. All of these factors have helped the city acquire a reputation as the “terror capital” of Europe.

Schengen Area: The area that encompasses twenty-six European nations that have agreed to abolish border controls and establish common visa rules. It represents the “freedom of movement” principle of the EU, but the policy has come under attack in light of the recent migrant crisis and the Paris and Brussels attacks. Critics charge that the area’s rules are being exploited by radicals who travel freely and escape law enforcement. They note that Abdeslam was able to escape Paris following the November attacks, pass through several security checkpoints, and then travel across other parts of Europe (including areas of Germany) before his recent capture. Proponents of the area say that it must be preserved if the project of European unity is to be maintained.

Sharia4Belgium: Former radical Islamist group that operated in Belgium during the 2000s. It attracted significant international attention by commemorating the September 11 terror attacks on the United States. It successfully reached out to younger Muslims in Belgium that face high poverty and unemployment rates and railed against bans against the wearing of veils in Antwerp in 2009 and nationally in 2011. The group no longer exists after it was designated as a terrorist organization in 2015. However, its existence demonstrates the inability of Belgian authorities to take radical groups seriously.

Bart de Wever: Leader of the right-wing New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) that is currently the mayor of Antwerp. The N-VA advocates for an independent Flanders, considering it to be more economically viable than remaining part of a unified Belgium that combines Flemish areas – more than 50% of the Belgian population is Flemish and speak Dutch – with French-speaking ones in Wallonia. de Wever has been a fervent opponent of the migrant policy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, arguing that Europe cannot create enough economic opportunities for migrants and that this will produce significant social upheaval in future years. His party could receive a boost after the attacks.

Belgian Struggles With Terrorism

Increased Number of Terror Attacks Linked to Belgian Origins: There have been a significant number of terrorist attacks that have their links to Belgium in recent years. In May 2014, a gunman opened fire on a Jewish Museum in Brussels killed four people. In January 2015, gunmen with Islamic extremist ties attacked the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and weapons for the attackers came from Brussels. These attacks were then followed by the Paris and Brussels massacres, illustrating a startling trend of the Belgian (and EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization) capital serving as a primary launching point for terror attacks throughout the continent. And this status is not new. For example, those who murdered Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, prior to the September 11 terror attacks planned that attack in Brussels.

An Unwillingness to Adequately Recognize the Terror Threat?: Right-wing critics of the current Belgian government say that political correctness and expediency have prevented more aggressive anti-terror efforts. They point out that Abdeslam was spotted in the town of Mechelen, Belgium before his capture but officials there did not pass this on to national authorities. Critics note that town officials did not do this for fear of triggering a raid and angering a key Muslim political constituency there. Also, right-wing critics allege that left-wing politicians do not have the stomach for an anti-terror campaign, saying that cultural relativism is undermining their ability for fight for “Belgian values.” They point to the lack of strong government response to the Sharia4Belgium movement as additional evidence.

Inability to Assimilate Immigrants: Like other European countries, Belgium is dangerously close to having a bifurcated society between wealthier, native Europeans and a poorer class of immigrants and their children. Belgium has high marginal labor tax rates and this has caused it to lose some of its younger talent to other European countries or other parts of the Western world. However, it has imported poorer, less educated immigrants from North Africa to fill some jobs. Immigrants currently occupy jobs as drivers, cleaners, and cafeteria workers, but these are the lucky ones. Some immigrants lack the language or job skills needed to participate in the economy and end up on government benefits, which tend to be more generous than those found in the United States. The result is a “ghettoization” of these immigrants and very little interaction between them and the rest of Belgian society. This breeds discontent, anger, and makes jihadist ideas highly attractive, especially to young people that struggle to graduate high school in these communities and experience some forms of discrimination from police and government officials.

Government In-Fighting: As noted earlier, Belgian society is divided into Flemish and French camps, with Flemish areas being more wealthy than French-speaking areas. Although Scottish and Catalan independence have gotten significant press in recent years, the Flemish independence movement is also growing. Extempers should remember that Belgium is really a geographic expression created by European powers near the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The nation has lacked a national identity ever since and over the last several decades moves have been made to give more control to local areas. Language divisions also permeate society and create significant divisions. For example, intelligence services, police, schools, and hospitals are divided along language lines. In fact, Belgium went through 589 days without a government between 2010-2011, breaking a record that Iraq set after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. With a government set against itself, Belgium finds it hard to deal with significant national problems. Critics note that although the Brussels subway network was told to shut immediately after the airport attack, it continued to run. If this order was heeded lives could have been saved as officials were told twenty minutes before the subway attack to clear the area. Such reports have weakened the confidence that Belgians have in their government and security personnel.

Lax Government Protections of Vital Infrastructure: One of the biggest fears of anti-terror experts is that terrorists will one day acquire the materials needed to build a radioactive “dirty bomb” that could spread radioactive material over a wide area, cause mass panic, and create significant economic problems. Security at nuclear installations is tight in some parts of the world such as the United States and Great Britain, but in Belgium it has not been very good. For example, its nuclear agency’s computer system was hacked this year and equipment was stolen in 2013 when several people scaled a fence in Mol and broke into a laboratory. Alarmingly, two Belgian nuclear employees quit their jobs four years ago to join the Syrian Civil War and they reportedly transferred their allegiance to the Islamic State. Police have also found evidence that militants were conducting surveillance of the family of a prominent nuclear official last year, possibly as part of a plot to kidnap that individual and acquire nuclear material. The United States provides Belgium with a significant number of its highly enriched uranium, but in 2004 it demanded tighter security provisions around the country’s nuclear facilities, noting that security personnel could not carry firearms. It took Belgium until 2013 to enact better security protocols, greatly angering American officials, with some noting that Belgium just is not taking the threat of nuclear terrorism seriously.

Responses to the Belgian Attacks

Increased Funding for Security and Intelligence Services: After the attacks, the Belgian government admitted that it had been negligent in funding its security services in recent years. Assessments reveal that Belgium could not lockdown Brussels in the days leading up to the attacks because it lacked the necessary intelligence and the personnel to do so. Furthermore, it has been reported that Belgium’s intelligence services are only staffed to 50% of the level of other European nations and that there are only 700 intelligence officials for a country of eleven million people. To make matters worse, Belgian police are also deemed to be operating at 20% below strength. Part of this funding deficit is tied to how many Belgian politicians have tossed national income toward public entitlements and social transfers, which have climbed to more than 30% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) as of 2014. Fixing this would be a good first step to combating terrorism.

A “Smarter” Police Reaction to the Threat of Radical Islamic Terrorism (a.k.a. “Jihadi Cool”): The Newsweek article from March 22 that is cited below makes a compelling case for how Western officials are misreading the threat of radical Islamic terrorism. They note that many of today’s young terrorists are not as devout to the Islamic faith as their predecessors in al-Qaeda and that they see traditional Arab garb and Islamic verses as “hip.” It argues that young men leaving European nations such as Belgium to fight in Syria are doing so out of romantic allure and that in many cases they have mental illnesses. In fact, foreign intelligence services estimate that nearly 20% of fighters departing Europe and other places to fight for the Islamic State are suffering from significant mental problems. Since many of the terror cells that claim to be fighting for the Islamic State are made of these “jihadist hipsters,” it has been argued that European attempts to de-radicalize them will fail since these people do not clearly understand radical Islamic ideology. Instead, what European countries such as Belgium will need to do is combine a more robust economic program with better police informants and sources to undo the efforts of these groups. And economically, Belgium will have to find a way to revive its economy, a problem that other European governments are facing. If it fails, it will not be able to help many of its poorer immigrants achieve greater integration into larger society.

Better Surveillance and Handling of Foreign Fighters: Although France leads European countries in terms of the number of citizens that have left to fight in Syria and Iraq, Belgium leads on a per capita basis. Some estimates are that nearly 500 Belgian Muslims have left to fight in these areas, but intelligence services say that such an estimate could be too low. A major fear is that these fighters will return to Europe with the skills they learned and become a security threat to the Belgian state, as well as other European population centers. After the Brussels attack, the Belgian government would be wise to monitor these individuals more closely, possibly looking into denying them re-entry or stripping them of their citizenship (although there are significant legal questions involved in such moves). At the time of this brief, the Belgian government was already seeking greater powers to monitor telecommunications and Internet traffic of terror suspects, so greater regulations may already be coming. Even greater cooperation with other European nations, whether through greater powers to Europol or a similar body, would be a step in the right direction.

Sources

“Belgium, My Belgium, Must Stop Living in Denial” (Sydney Morning Herald, March 28, 2016)

“Belgium Fears Nuclear Plants Are Vulnerable” (The New York Times, March 25, 2016)

“Belgium Struggles With Public Outrage Over Attacks” (The Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 2016)

“Brussels Attacks to Cost Belgium $4.47 Billion” (Newsweek, March 23, 2016)

“Brussels Bombings Put ‘The Whole of Europe’ Under Attack” (The Christian Science Monitor, March 22, 2016)

“Can Belgium Protect Its Jews? A Community Has its Doubts” (The Jerusalem Post, March 26, 2016)

“Four People Detained in Raids Across Belgium” (USA Today, March 27, 2016)

“Jihadi Cool: Belgium’s New Extremists Are as Shallow as They Are Deadly” (Newsweek, March 22, 2016)

“Postcard From a Failed State? Attacks Cast Light on Belgium Identity Crisis” (Der Spiegel, March 25, 2016)

“Riots at Brussels Attack Shrine; 13 Anti-Terror Raids Made” (Boston Globe, March 27, 2016)

“The Islamic State’s Plot to Build a Radioactive ‘Dirty Bomb’” (Foreign Policy, February 29, 2016)