Belgian Police Raids Apprehend Four Teenage Would-Be Jihadists
4th March 2024
In a country-wide counter-terrorism operation, Belgian police on Sunday raided four residences, arresting four Islamic State (IS) sympathizers previously flagged by state security. The authorities moved into action when it appeared that the group was actively planning a terrorist attack on a Brussels concert hall.
In a press release from the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party, MP and chairman of the Interior Committee Ortwin Depoortere said the foiled attack “evokes painful memories of previous IS attacks,” specifically referring to the 2015 Bataclan massacre in Paris in which 89 concertgoers lost their lives. “That almost a decade later such a tragedy would happen again is alarming.”
Depoortere leveled further accusations at the disgraced former Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (centrist-liberal Open VLD) and his successor Paul Van Tigchelt (also Open VLD), under whose leadership Islamic radicalism had “been ignored for far too long.”
Yet another reminder that Islam is a terrorist movement.