BRUSSELS AIRPORT POLICE DETAINED 30 TERRORIST SUSPECTS IN ONE MONTH

Η ΑΣΤΥΝΟΜΊΑ ΤΟΥ ΑΕΡΟΔΡΟΜΊΟΥ ΤΩΝ ΒΡΥΞΕΛΛΏΝ ΣΥΝΈΛΑΒΕ 30 ΥΠΌΠΤΟΥΣ ΤΡΟΜΟΚΡΑΤΊΑΣ ΣΕ ΈΝΑ ΜΉΝΑ

A Belgian army soldier guarding a Brussels landmark / Getty


Between mid-November and mid-December anti-terror police detained more than 30 people at Brussels Airport on suspicion of “links with terrorism or offences linked to the security of the state”, local media reported Monday. Although 30 in one month equals one terror suspect per day (!), Interior Minister Jan Jambon said it was “too early” to give exact details.

After the terror attacks at Brussels International Airport and Maalbeek metro station in March 2016, some 109 specially trained officers have been deployed, with most of them working at the airport.

And it seems they are necessary. By some estimates, Belgium has supplied the highest per capita number of fighters to Syria of any European nation – between 350 and 550, out of a total population of 11 million that includes fewer than half a million Muslims. Brussels’ suburb Molenbeek is known the be its primary breeding ground for terrorists. George Dallemagne, a center-right opposition member of the federal parliament stated on Molenbeek that:



“Terrorists are radicalised in France, go to Syria to fight and when they come back they find the logistical support and the networks in Molenbeek, (…) it’s like an airbase for jihadists.”Local police have little grip in Molenbeek, and as long as they don’t, the special officers will be needed at the Brussels Airport, and maybe other airports in Europe as well. By Benjamin de Wolf