We received a stark reminder on Tuesday of Belgium’s continued vulnerability to Islamic State terrorism.
In the latest attack, two police officers and a civilian member of the public were shot dead by a man who was shouting “God is Great” in Arabic. The terrorist was shot and killed as he resisted arrest by a police response team. But according to Belgian media, the man had only been released from prison on Monday.
Apparently without any terrorist sympathies before his imprisonment, Belgian authorities are concerned that the man was radicalized while in prison. It’s a relevant investigative line of inquiry in that Belgian and French prisons have particular problems with Islamic extremist radicalization. Yet Belgium’s terrorist challenge isn’t simply that its prisons are incubators for extremism. It’s also that fact that Belgium’s Islamic community is plagued by a radical minority.
One group within it consists of moderate Muslims who peacefully live and work alongside their fellow residents. Another group is defined by more fundamentalist Salafi-aligned Islamic thought, but not violence. The final group, however, is defined by a vein of sympathy for Islamic extremist intimidation and violence. And it is this final group that poses the most problems. It does so in providing logistical support for terrorist infiltration cells such as those who carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels attacks and acts as an incubator for newly-inspired extremists.
Unfortunately for Belgium, its counter-terrorism services face extreme organizational challenges in detecting terrorist plots in the way that Britain’s Security Service and France’s DCRI do. This is further complicated by the short cycle between indoctrination and actionable plotting in ISIS plots. ISIS has also benefited from its entrepreneurial terrorist brand which requires only crude instruments such as a vehicle to see itself carried through to effect (al Qaeda is now copying that strategy).
Finally, there’s the challenge of directed and trained ISIS cells attempting to infiltrate Europe. While the caliphate has shrunk in size and power, it retains significant capabilities and a continuing desire — to conduct spectacular attacks on European soil. For a number of reasons it will also alarm Western counter-terrorism officials that this suspect accessed a school.
These various factors means Tuesday’s attack won’t be anywhere near the last.
