Brussels attacks (catch all)

A rare, detailed article on counter-terrorism in Belguim before the latest attacks in Paris, a week after the Hebdo attack; the former were linked to a suburb of Brussels, Molenbeek:http://www.buzzfeed.com/joshuahersh/...ns#.pgNVQOLglm

The headline & sub-title:

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What They Missed: The Anti-Terror Raid That Asked All The Wrong Questions Ten months before the deadly attacks in Paris, a nighttime raid in a quiet corner of Belgium left an apartment destroyed, two suspected attackers dead, one man arrested — and a host of unanswered questions. BuzzFeed News’ Joshua Hersh investigates a shoot-out that showed Europe’s terrorism problem starts at home.

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For those SWJ readers who think that IS does not drive on an intelligence driven operations concept...their attack cells use a form of OPSEC tradecraft that resembles that of spy cell tradecraft......think again.....reference today's Brussels airport bombing....we saw this as far back as 2003 in Iraq and it has not changed since 2003.

Cells operating by the book if one gets neutralized the other one gets into action to divert attention from the first cell.....and what has come out of the Brussels major arrest....not a single use of any form of communications outside of face to face....defeats every time any form of major communications surveillance operations.

Defeating IS cells has always been about the heavy use of police and security services to defeat them using their own tactics...not through the use of high tech which we seem to think is the be all end all.

Brussels Attacks: At Least 31 Dead at Zaventem and Maelbeek

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Brussels Attacks: At Least 31 Dead at Zaventem and Maelbeek

Pentagon Chief: U.S. Working to Account for Civilians, Service Members After Brussels Attacks

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Pentagon Chief: U.S. Working to Account for Civilians, Service Members After Brussels Attacks

Brussels Attacks Live Coverage: ISIS Claims Responsibility

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Brussels Attacks Live Coverage: ISIS Claims Responsibility

A temporary thread, after the bombings AM today, for maximum visibility. A number of SWJ Blog threads exist, they have been copied to this thread and some posts placed earlier on the main, general CT in Europe thread. Accordingly this post will be first for a few moments only.

Clearly this thread should be read alongside the updates on the French CT thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...=15299&page=11

In Europe, particularly at airports and key government sites we are used to the sight of regular, armed police activity. In Brussels and before today in France the police have been supplemented by armed soldiers for months. Now the question is being asked - what impact do they have?

Amidst the BBC News coverage is this:

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Heavily armed men were able to enter the airport at Zaventem, open fire and blow themselves up. An hour or so later another man was able to enter a metro train a stone's throw from the headquarters of the EU and blow himself up.

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To date I have read reporting at Zaventem of:

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An eyewitness reported hearing gunshots and shouts in Arabic just before the explosions.

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That does not mean the attackers were 'heavily armed'.

Such an armed presence is commonly described as a deterrent and to reassure. Plus the possibility of identifying a threat and being capable immediately of violently responding.

A BBC piece with a commentary on airport security:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35873989

Background reading: Culture, history and religion and the war on terror

http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/201....html?spref=fb

Excerpts:

The latest Islamist-terrorist atrocity hit the city of Brussels. The attackers no doubt think they are about to meet their 72 virgins. I have nothing new to say about this, but am posting excerpts from two previous posts (one written after the Paris attacks, the second after the San Bernadino attack) that may shed some light on SOME of the cultural and religious issues in this war. I do want to add that I while I think cultural issues are critical in the long run, they matter far less in the short term than policing, spying, arrests and retaliation. Wars tend to do that: they concentrate matters and short term immediate action is what counts most. Intellectuals who specialize in history and philosophy may matter more in the long term, but once war has begun, it's "action this day". This distinction is not news, but it does sometimes get lost.

And I would add that I do not believe the "Eurabia" BS either. Even Sweden will not become Muslim. Muslims will assimilate into Europe, or will face fascism, expulsion and worse. And I will go out on a limb and even predict that England will neither become Islamic, nor resort to naked fascism (it has a culture strong enough to survive/avoid both). Maybe this is true of most European countries. We will see. But the "Eurabia" paranoia is just slightly less silly than the Islamicate dream of an Islamicized Europe.

The following post is an unedited mishmash at places, but you will get the point...

...Does Islamist Terrorism have anything to do with Islam?
In light of the above, one answer would be: of course not. There IS no one thing called Islam. There are many Islams. And most of them are not terrorist. Case closed.
But, again in the light of the above, one may also say that mainstream Sunni Islam is remarkably uniform in its theology and its ideals. The vast majority of the world's Muslims are Sunnis. Within Sunni Islam, there are four recognized schools of law. In principle, the vast majority of Sunnis honor and respect these schools and their doctors. The vast majority has no idea what is IN those schools or in the writings of their doctors, but they honor them and idealize them. It is very common for educated Muslims to own a book or two of fiqh and hadith. Rarely read, but always honored. A small minority of highly westernized postmodern Muslims believe that those medieval books and their authors are no longer valid for us and Islam (like modern Christianity) is more or less "spiritual" and can (or should) be whatever a believer sincerely thinks it is. Even these postmodern Muslims frequently believe that the Quran is the inerrant, literal word of God, but given that most classical Islamic theology is not lifted straight out of the Quran, they feel they can safely reject aspects of classical theology that are no longer fashionable. That they have usually not read the Quran makes this kind of cherry-picking even easier. But as numerous public opinion polls have repeatedly shown, most Sunni Muslims do not share this postmodern view of their religion. Whatever they may do in practice (and they frequently do exactly what adherents of all other religions are doing in similar econcomic and political circumstances; the much-mentioned "Muslims who just want to have a sandwich and send their kids to good schools"), they do believe that Islam is more than just an identity token. They believe it is "a complete code of life" and if enforced in its true letter and spirit, it holds the possibility of reversing all our communal ills. And what is that letter, if not that spirit? it is the books of Shariah written by medieval Sunni theologians. Books that were composed in the midst of a warlike expanding empire by confident intellectuals of a dominant creed. Books that idealize holy war (not "inner struggle", Karen Armstrong notwithstanding) and a society where Muslims rule and non-Muslims know their (inferior) place in society. Books that idealize pious rulers and the enforcement of shariah law (stonings and amputations included). Books that idealize martyrdom and war against the infidels. Books that prime some of them to fall for preachers who preach purity and a true Islamic state. Only some of them. But that is enough. A convert from France felt strongly enough about this to sacrifice his own life in a suicide mission that aimed to kill random innocent Frenchmen. Well, not innocent in his eyes any longer.

So yes, classical Sunni Islam tends to prime some people for joining Jihadist organizations (whether ISIS or LET or Islamic Jihad or any other of an alphabet soup of Jihadi groups) and committing atrocities with a good conscience. See the ten young men who went to Mumbai on the first "Mumbai-style attack"; what motivated them to go on that suicide mission? Nothing to do with Islam? I think is hard to say that with a straight face..
Unless you happen to be in the postmodern Western liberal elite, in which case you may suffer from what Tanner Greer calls "the limits of liberal education in the 21st century, far better at teaching platitudes than exploring the depths of the human condition; and the inability of secular elites to understand religion and the religious masses who earnestly believe in them..."

...Last but not the least, all nutcases cannot be stopped beforehand. Some surprises will always happen in a large and complex society . There is no risk-free society, with or without Muslims. But this is not World-War Three. Not in the United States. In parts of Europe the proportion of jihadists is likely higher (for various reasons, including racism and multiculturalist liberalism). Meanwhile, in the core of the Muslim world itself, all bets are off. There is no well-articulated theology of liberal Sunnism. Other organizing ideologies (like Marxism and pan-Arab nationalism) have manifestly failed. The authoritarian regimes that exist are (for now) the only game in town. These authoritarian elites, who disproportionately benefit from the modern world, impose their will using a combination of force, persuasion and foreign support. But they lack a deep legitimating ideology. This crisis of ideology is extremely serious, and it may devour some of those countries (though the survival of Jordan is a good example of the fact that even the most arbitrary modern states have more strength than we sometimes imagine). Those Muslim states that are further away from the Arab heartland (and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) may do better. They can frequently rely on other identities to maintain the legitimacy of their states and new Islams can arise in them with time. But even they will not be compltely free of Jihadist conflict. No state is completely free of conflict of course, and many conflicts unrelated to Islam or Jihad could easily kill millions and destroy whole countries. But predominantly Islamic countries do have the added burden of the conflict of Classical Islamic ideals with modern civilization (not just Western civilization), and it will take time to resolve this conflict.
Hold on tight.

Bruce Hoffman has a three-part radio interview (very short clips, a total under 4mins):http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-tw...01/whybelgium/

Bruce Hoffman in a radio interview, which whilst under 4 mins, is split into three portions:http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-tw...01/whybelgium/

Raffaello Pantucci (RUSI) via the FT and a pessimistic viewpoint, whcih ends with:

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The Brussels attacks will also play badly against the backdrop of Europe’s migration crisis. It will not be entirely surprising if elements close to the recent attacks found ways of slipping into the country alongside refugees from the Middle East. An already tense situation in Europe will grow more fraught, and this will have inevitable political ramifications too. This is the biggest problem with which security planners will have to contend. It is often said that the best response to a terrorist threat is to keep calm and carry on. This is sage advice but in the face of a network that appears able to strike with impunity, and a political environment growing more toxic by the day, it will be ever harder for security forces and politicians to ensure that Europe maintains its values in the face of the terrorist threat from within.

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Link:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a6459d5a-f...#axzz43gC1qcBT

It is interesting that the world has totally forgotten that there were far more terror/bomb/aircraft hijacking attacks in the period 1968 though the mid 1980's.....why is that..??

AtlanticCouncil
✔ ‎@AtlanticCouncil ISIS Strikes #Brussels: Is This The ‘New Normal’?
http://buff.ly/25kWrWP


Michael Weiss
✔ ‎@michaeldweiss U.S. Officials Bash ‘####ty’ Belgian Security Forces - The Daily Beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ty-forces.html …

Before calling the Belgian police and intel "incompetent" note that they have 10x suspects and 1/10th resources than others

WHAT is really interesting is the total believe that all terror attacks can be stopped..they cannot that is the true truth........

Many seem to forget that the Belgium security services have been incessant in their chasing down the Paris attack group and rolling up an impressive number of safe houses, IS members, explosives and weapons........in some ways they are following the JSOC model of hitting one site, consequent intel analysis and evidence gathering and then on to the next target....

WHAT does need to happen and it is not due to national mindsets...the total exchange of any information gathered by any security service that effects any security service when it comes to jihadi terror AND for that matter yes terror from the neo right as well.

I had a interesting conversation with a number of Israeli's last night and
it might cause some heartburn with SWJ commenters......

When talk got around to Brussels....they shrugged their shoulders and stated....why do people forget the 60s thru 80s when bombs and terror attacks were far higher than today....it is a war and yes people get killed but it is a simple fact of life....

Actually they are right ........and they tend to constantly remind themselves of this fact and from their POV...they are right if we take the time to think it through.

All loss of life is bad but say when 500,000 Syrians are killed by a genocidal dictator does the world get so wrapped up as with say Paris and or Brussels....not really....

When there is a capable Syrian force able to deal with IS on the ground and fighting them daily what do we do .....? Are they "moderate enough" is our response.

WHEN we know and can prove a deep relationship between the Russian FSB, Iranian IRGC and Assad to IS WHAT is our response...silence.....

So are we in the West actually just as responsible for the IS attacks as is IS....??

Brussels Shows Europe’s Shockingly Dysfunctional Approach to Security

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Brussels Shows Europe’s Shockingly Dysfunctional Approach to Security

IS Seen ‘Deeply Rooted’ in Europe in Wake of Brussels Attack

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IS Seen ‘Deeply Rooted’ in Europe in Wake of Brussels Attack

I expect the title rather gives it away:

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Brussels Attacks: It isn’t about Molenbeek, it is about a Broken Belgian Government

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It is a good, short explanation what has happened in a European capital city, long before the recent wave of migrants arrived:http://www.juancole.com/2016/03/brus...overnment.html

Vox offers a Q&A with ICSR's Peter Neumann. A taster:

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According to Neumann, Belgium isn't just one of many European countries with a homegrown extremist problem; it's the country with the biggest such problem on the entire continent.

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Link:http://www.vox.com/2016/3/23/1129017...lgium-jihadism

From John Schindler:http://observer.com/2016/03/europe-is-again-at-war/

Scott Atran has a modest proposal

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...What does that even mean? It is one of those brilliant things that you can always say, and you will never be wrong because it is not happening, so the onus of failure is on the human race for not making it happen.

This actually applies to his famous suicide-bomber theories as well. They are just enough removed from the actual conflicts and counter-measures being taken or capable of being taken to make them pretty much useless. There is information in his research, but there are no actionable recommendations. Those have to come from someone else who can read that information and maintain just enough detachment to be able to say: "yes, this part seems true, and even though it is padded around with BS, I think I can come up with something actually useful here.

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I am not that detached wise warrior saint. But there must be one out there. I hope :)

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

I had a interesting conversation with a number of Israeli's last night and
it might cause some heartburn with SWJ commenters......

When talk got around to Brussels....they shrugged their shoulders and stated....why do people forget the 60s thru 80s when bombs and terror attacks were far higher than today....it is a war and yes people get killed but it is a simple fact of life....

Actually they are right ........and they tend to constantly remind themselves of this fact and from their POV...they are right if we take the time to think it through.

All loss of life is bad but say when 500,000 Syrians are killed by a genocidal dictator does the world get so wrapped up as with say Paris and or Brussels....not really....

When there is a capable Syrian force able to deal with IS on the ground and fighting them daily what do we do .....? Are they "moderate enough" is our response.

WHEN we know and can prove a deep relationship between the Russian FSB, Iranian IRGC and Assad to IS WHAT is our response...silence.....

So are we in the West actually just as responsible for the IS attacks as is IS....??

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You know why people have forgotten what I recall tracking pretty closely? Why the terrorist attacks were kept in perspective then and not now? I suspect a large reason is the advent of 24/7 news, each network competing with the other to tell a dramatic story and keep the audience fixated.

Within a long and partly accurate report on today's shooting in Brussels is this passage:

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It comes as Belgian police admitted a catastrophic police blunder allowed Paris bombings logistics chief Salah Abdeslam to remain at large for more than three months.A dedicated beat officer gave information about the whereabouts of Abdeslam to superiors on December 7 and urged them to pass it on to the country’s anti-terrorist police. But the confidential report was inexplicably not passed onto the federal bureau.

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Link:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz43vpoROfW

Also an official statement of apology:http://www.politico.eu/article/local...tell-brussels/

In the more infamous commune (neighbourhood) of Molenbeek, via a FP article and citing a US SME Matthew Levitt:

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....the police in Molenbeek had 185 unfilled positions. “When I asked them if they do community policing — which works really well for counterterrorism — they said, well, maybe part time, but not full time,” Levitt recalled. With so many vacancies, they’re having a hard time just doing basic police functions.

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Within a longer article:http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/24/...ved-brussels/?

Superb New York Review of Books article 'Why Belguim?' with a Q&A which covers many topics:

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Why has Belgium become such a focus of European jihad? And why has it been so difficult for Belgian authorities to contain the problem? Joost Hiltermann spoke to Didier Leroy, a leading terrorism researcher at the Royal Military Academy of Belgium and an adjunct at the Free University of Brussels.

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Link:http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/03...s-why-belgium/

Simple and effective:http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...cted.html?_r=0

Extremely interesting development that is being largely overlooked by western MSM referencing jihadi activity in Belgium.......Kyle W. Orton ‏@KyleWOrton
Interesting. Was a recent finding for me that the plot to assassinate Ahmed Shah Massoud began in Belgium.

Ahmed Shah Massoud was legendary Tajik commander killed by al-Qaeda day before Sept 11. #Brussels man now arrested.

Murderers of #Massoud both had Belgian passports issued by #Molenbeek cityhall where @salafists still run dtp housing& cpas

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

Extremely interesting development that is being largely overlooked by western MSM referencing jihadi activity in Belgium.......Kyle W. Orton ‏@KyleWOrton
Interesting. Was a recent finding for me that the plot to assassinate Ahmed Shah Massoud began in Belgium.

Ahmed Shah Massoud was legendary Tajik commander killed by al-Qaeda day before Sept 11. #Brussels man now arrested.

Murderers of #Massoud both had Belgian passports issued by #Molenbeek cityhall where @salafists still run dtp housing& cpas

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Brussels terror suspect was jailed over Ahmad Shah Massoud assassination http://www.khaama.com/brussels-terro...ssination-0454 …

Brussels Attacks Were A Terrorist Interrogation Failure

Raffaello Pantucci's column, which was in the FT earlier this week, is now on the RUSI website; which opens with:

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With cells apparently able to launch large-scale atrocities on an increasingly regular basis, what does Europe now need to do address an acute terrorist threat?

(Ends with) This is the biggest problem with which security planners will have to contend. It is often said that the best response to a terrorist threat is to keep calm and carry on. This is sage advice but in the face of a network that appears able to strike with impunity, and a political environment growing more toxic by the day, it will be ever harder for security forces and politicians to ensure that Europe maintains its values in the face of the terrorist threat from within.

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Link:https://rusi.org/commentary/brussels...k-policymakers

I was wondering amidst all the footage when we would see Belgian Muslims feature and this short documentary (6 mins) has some, notably at the end:http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/apr/01/brussels-divided-molenbeek-after-the-terrorist-attacks-video?

At least the reporter spoke with some young Muslims, whose voice is rarely heard.

A classic headline in The Daily Mail today:

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Horrific moment Muslim woman is mown down by grinning far-right activist who then stops to take a PICTURE during anti-Islam rally in the troubled Brussels district of Molenbeek

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Link:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...Molenbeek.html

The facts are that it was two local Muslim men in the car, who have been named on Twitter and when I last checked it was unclear if they had been arrested afterwards.
See a local report:http://www.rtbf.be/info/societe/deta...tov?id=9258473

Prompted by a "lurker" here is the local police chief explaining his "beat" and his goal is:

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The goal also is to try to go back to normal life, so people aren’t hiding in their houses. We have to not scare people.

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Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/cop-molenbeek-beat

Awhile ago now SWJ had two articles, 'Time to Bring Counterinsurgency to Molenbeek' by Gary Anderson and a response by a Dutch journalist's riposte 'Time to Bring Strategy to Molenbeek: No Need for Counterinsurgency'

Links:Time to Bring Counterinsurgency to Molenbeek and http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...nterinsurgency

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/fi...ror-in-europe/

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FRONTLINE and ProPublica go inside Europe’s fight against terrorism — the missed warnings and the lingering vulnerabilities.

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And the associated article:

https://www.propublica.org/article/h...n-to-terrorism

How Europe Left Itself Open to Terrorism

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The ISIS attacks on France and Belgium exposed weaknesses in Europe’s approach to borders and information sharing that counterterror officials had warned about for years. The vulnerabilities remain largely unaddressed.

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In interviews, some on camera with Frontline, counterterror veterans in Europe and the United States outlined systemic problems they said they had warned political leaders about for years. (ProPublica granted some anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly or because of security concerns.) The list includes:

•Weak and uncoordinated enforcement of Europe’s international borders, a situation aggravated by the chaotic influx of refugees from Syria.

•Differences in laws and security cultures that hamper intelligence-sharing and law enforcement cooperation among nations.

•Fragmented and incomplete databases, and the lack of a universal database of terror suspects effectively used and supplied by all European nations.

•Short prison sentences for terrorism and violent crime that have freed ex-convicts to play prominent roles in the jihad.

•Limited resources and support for security forces in some nations, such as Belgium and Greece — a weakness that terrorists have studied and exploited.

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Bill,

A good catch, even if the PBS programme cannot be viewed in the UK. The article from ProPublica makes many good points, although at times places too much weight on possible IT solutions, notably PNR.

Sometimes it is the human factor that really helps, especially from those who a terrorist considers an ally or simply silent on what they are doing:

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A Syrian refugee suspected of planning a terrorist attack in Germany on behalf of Islamic State was captured by police early Monday in the eastern city of Leipzig after another Syrian lured him to an apartment, tied him up with the help of other refugees and turned him over to police.

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Link:http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/...nap-story.html

Alas it is only after an attack, especially one with significant loss of life, that politicians respond and alter priorities - not always to the satisfaction of the "agencies" and law enforcement.

I was puzzled at the refernce to PNR data helping in the Headley case (a US citizen assisting LeT in the Mumbai attack); ProPublica have reported on the failure to respond to help from family and friends before the attack - which can be found in various Forum threads.

Some helpful context:

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Of the world’s jihadi foreign fighter population, there have been approximately 250 people mobilized out of 3.3m Muslims in America (a mere .000075 percent), compared with 1700 out of 4.7m Muslims in France (.00036 percent).....For example, two neighbourhoods in Brussels have produced nearly two-and-a-half times as many foreign fighters than all of America, despite the fact that America has more than five times as many Muslims.

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From:https://www.brookings.edu/research/c...ext-president/

A WSJ report on a Belgian post-event review after the Paris and Brussels attacks, after clearly some extensive access if not a copy:http://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-r...ves-1483630994

A catalogue of missed opportunities best shown in the concluding passage:

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... three weeks before the Paris attacks, a Belgian terror-threat analysis body detected that Salah had changed his social-media profile picture to an ISIS flag. It alerted federal police. Nothing was done with that information; the police said the case had been closed.

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There is - understandably - some overlap with the larger thread on the Paris attacks. See:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...=15299&page=12

A Belgian SME has written this commentary:https://rusi.org/commentary/brussels...-needs-be-done

I noted these lines:

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According to recent figures, there were still at least 160 Belgian fighters in the region, including women and children.It is unclear how many of them will eventually return home, since a portion could fight to the death (110 Belgian fighters have died so far), while other true believers may decide to relocate to other jihadi theatres. Although it is known that around 20 of these fighters are currently negotiating with the authorities the conditions of their return, the actual number of returnees could likely be higher, adding to the 120 foreign fighters that have already returned to Belgium since 2012.

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