#brussels terror attacks

Salafists trained for a suspected attack on a Belgian nuclear reactor with paintball-style weapons right outside the reactor’s perimeter fence, a Dutch newspaper has revealed. Radicals based in a Dutch mosque practiced close-quarters combat in a disused hotel near the Tihange reactor and sought advice on a grenade-launcher freely available to players of Airsoft, a version of paintball. The men, based in the Al Houda mosque in Geleen, were unable to train with Airsoft weapons in the Netherlands, where they are strictly controlled, so they crossed the border and entered Belgium, where no restrictions exist. They trained at the Airsoft centre ‘The Chambers’, a disused hotel in the Tihange woods, an “ideal location for simulating urban warfare and man-to-man fighting in ruins”, according to newspaper De Telegraaf. The group told an unnamed Dutch Airsoft organiser that they had “a foundation that offered help in Syria”. The radicals asked for advice on the functioning of an Airsoft grenade launcher. “When we drove to the house, I saw they were looking at the gates of the nuclear power station”, the organiser told the paper. “It looked as if they were measuring the distance to the reactor”. The organiser reported the incident to the police. The story claim to light when Dutch financial police raided the Geleen mosque last month as part of an investigation into money laundering and found an unregistered Airsoft weapon. Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reported that the mosque had “links with the caliphate”, the area controlled by IS in the Middle East. In the wake of the Brussels bombings last year it was revealed that terrorists were targeting Belgium’s ageing nuclear reactors. Authorities stripped security badges from a number of employees after video footage of a top nuclear scientist was uncovered in the flat of a suspected militant. Terrorists had been following the scientist's movements. “Playing Airsoft is not a punishable offence”, the defendants’ lawyer told the paper.

The bomb maker behind the Paris and Brussels terror attacks was identified for the first time on March 7 as a Syrian who entered Europe as a refugee. Investigators confirmed that explosives expert Ahmad Alkhald entered Europe via Greece and Germany before joining the terror network that killed more than 150 and injured hundreds more in the attacks on the two capitals. Alkhald, born on January 1992 in Syria, was the only terrorist to have evaded the international manhunt. His whereabouts are still unknown. Two Belgian newspapers published the man’s photograph along with details of his role in Paris, where he made the suicide vests, and Belgium, where he gave instructions on how to detonate explosive luggage in the country’s largest airport. French and Belgian investigators believe the Alkhald was a "key bomb maker in the attacks of November 13 2015 in Paris Saint-Denis", newspaper Derniere Heure reported. His DNA was found on two suicide vests, including the one abandoned in a bin in Montrouge by Salah Abdeslam, the Belgian terrorist who fled. His DNA has also been traced to hideouts in Belgium, where many of the terrorists were based. Alkhald entered Europe as a migrant with a fake ID via the Greek island of Leros on September 20 2015, the newspaper reported. Via Macedonia, he then made his way to Ulm in Germany, where he was picked up by Abdeslam. Thanks to new documents provided by Abdeslam, he became Yassine Noure, after which he found lodgings in Belgium. After the Paris attacks he fled Europe via Vienna, where he caught a flight to Turkey. He is thought to have joined ISIS in Syria. Police now believe Alkhald played a key role in the Brussels attack too. He is thought to be the man known as Mahmoud who advised Najim Laachraoui, the Brussels airport bomb maker, on the necessary explosive techniques. Laachraoui took orders using encrypted videos. The second newspaper, La Libre Belgique, reported that In these videos, Laachraoui asked for advice on electronic circuits for detonating explosives at a distance. Laachraoui asked “Mahmoud” to test explosives under railway lines, implying the terror cell had planned to derail a passenger train.

Europe's best known terror suspect was a good school pupil who excelled above all in one subject: ethics, a newspaper has revealed. Salah Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the Paris terror attack team, scored top marks in his ethics exam and also did well in sociology, according to a newly uncovered school report. At the age of 17, ten years before he allegedly took part in an operation designed to kill hundreds, Abdeslam scored 68% in his ethics exam, 65% in sociology, and 61% in maths. He did however struggle a little with history, geography and electronics, scoring between 40% and 50%. In his 2006/2007 school report, published in Belgian newspaper La Capitale, Abdeslam's teachers noted one or two minor discipline problems: he had a tendency to answer back. He was also absent 80 times over the course of the school year. More than half of these absences were without justification, the report shows. Despite this, Abdeslam, who this month appeared in court in Paris, was considered a "fairly good" pupil, the newspaper reported. "Watch the chatter" remarked one teacher in the report. "You electronics project needs more attention," wrote another. Abdeslam attended the now infamous Serge Creuz state school in Molenbeek, as did Paris attacks mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Radical Islam recruiters were known to hang around at the school gates, targeting children as young as 15. After finishing school, Abdeslam drifted into a life of petty crime. With his brother he ran a Molenbeek bar where marijuana and stronger, mind-bending hallucinogenic drugs were sold. Around a year before the Paris attacks - the precise timing and motivation are still not clear - he was converted to the Islamic cause. According to his Belgian lawyer, he had however not even read the Koran before agreeing to join the team of killers who targeted terraces, a stadium and a nightclub in the French capital. Ethics classes are taught in Belgium as an alternative to religion. They are designed to give pupils a "critical mind" and encourage "cooperation".

The terrorists who targeted Brussels airport spent the day before their suicide mission playing on a games console, according to the sole survivor. Najim Lachraoui and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who both blew themselves up in the Zaventem departure hall on Tuesday March 22, prepared their bombs on the Sunday, and then relaxed on their Playstation 4 on Monday. On Monday night they ordered taxis to take them, along with their deadly luggage, to the airport the next day. Details of the final hours before the attacks have been revealed by survivor Mohamed Abrini, who last week helped police reconstruct the group's movements at the airport. Rather than blow himself up, Abrini abandoned his luggage and fled. He was arrested on April 9. According to Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure, Abrini told police during the reconstruction that the group picked out three flights from the departure board for their attack: one from Brussels to Russia, another destined for the US, and a third for Israel. Their targets identified, they wandered over to a departure hall cafe and had a coffee together. The trio would have arrived at the airport with a considerably larger explosive load if it were not for a taxi mixup: their were sent a car rather than the minivan they had requested.

Brussels airport customs officials have been forced to hand in their sidearms after one pulled a gun on a colleague. All 33 customs officials are now working unarmed because airport management fears disputes between stressed out officers might escalate. The officials, who until last Friday were routinely armed to protect themselves and help secure the airport against terrorist threats, have been accused of acting "like cowboys". One twice pulled a gun on a colleague, while another has been reprimanded for bringing a bottle of whiskey into work, Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure reported. The decision to disarm the men and women was taken as a precautionary measure "following a personal conflict" and reports of "harassment and threats", confirmed Belgium's customs authority. The pistols will not be handed back before before an inquiry is complete. Customs officials are said to be working under high pressure since the terror attacks. They are supposed to be supporting the army and police at Belgium's borders, though without the same pay or perks - a difference which is said to have caused tension between services. Until they get their guns back, customs officials will have to rely on pepper spray to protect themselves, said authority spokesman Francis Adyns.

I can’t help wondering why there was, or is, such a large, rich pool of potential recruits for Islamists in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe. Salah, according to Mary, has not even read the Koran. This is not just about religion. It’s more unsettling than that.

 Read more at http://www.washingtonoutsider.org/editors-blog/europe-and-russia-under-threat-to-support-putin-assad-or-not-to-support-putin-assad