Posted on 11/21/2015 4:36:32 AM PST by EBH
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel declined to give the reason why the authorities raised the alert level but told a news conference the government would review the security situation on Sunday afternoon.
The metro system would remain closed until then, in line with the recommendation of the crisis center, he said.
The crisis center website said it was calling on local authorities to cancel large events, urge people to avoid crowds, postpone soccer matches, close the Brussels metro for the weekend and stepping up the military and police presence.
Suspected militant Salah Abdeslam, 26, returned home to Brussels from Paris after the attacks, when his elder brother Brahim blew himself up at a cafe.
Fears of the risk he still poses prompted the cancellation last week of an international friendly soccer match in Brussels against Spain. The crisis center said weekend games in the top two professional divisions should now be postponed.
The alert level for the whole country was raised following the Paris attacks to level three out of four, implying a "possible or probable" threat. Previously, only certain sites, such as the U.S. embassy, were at level three.
Belgium, and its capital in particular, have been at the center of investigations into the Paris attacks - which included suicide bombers targeting a France-Germany soccer match - after the links to Brussels emerged. Three people detained in Brussels are facing terrorism charges.
French authorities have said the attacks were planned in Brussels by a local man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28, who fought for Islamic State in Syria and was killed in the siege of an apartment in the Paris suburb of St. Denis on Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It’s a war, isn’t it?
No story here.
The story is Belgium war on islamic terror successes.
Guardian:
13:43
The Belgian government is asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of Salah Abdeslam to call an official hotline and is also asking people to be aware of suspicious packages or behaviour.
Abdeslam, a Brussels resident, whose brother Brahim blew himself up at a Paris bar, is believed to be in Belgium and is the subject of a huge manhunt. Both grew up in the poor Molenbeek district of Brussels, where a cache of weapons was found yesterday, before going to join the Islamic State group in Syria.
A suspect arrested in Belgium on Thursday has been charged with terrorist offences in connection with the Paris attacks. His identity has not been revealed.
BBC:
13:21
The so-called Islamic State and Saudi Arabia - in its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other, Kamel Daoud writes in the New York Times.
“This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: Preserving the famous strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimises, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh (Islamic State) feeds on.”
I wonder what those chemicals were...could be ingredients for suicide vests...or ingredients for a poor mans chemical weapon. Worrisome.
And so once again, the terrorists win.
There were many Freepers who did not approve of the way the Boston bombing was handled.
Too militaristic——too many “jackbooted thugs”.
The fact that the Boston area people were delighted didn’t matter to them one whit.
.
And we do nothing and they kill people? Its pick your poison time.
It would be funny, in an ironic sort of way, for the “European project” to end in Brussels.
We all got the day off when that happened in Boston. Every business was forced to shut down. It was really quite amazing. Luckily I was sheltering in place with an ocean view, day off, following the action and reporting it on FR!
See how peaceful the city of Brussels is after locking down it down like a prison?
Islam is now proven to be the Religion of Peace (RoP)!
Four steps to making your country peaceful.
1) Import Islam into your country,
2) Have Muslims attempt to do jihad in your country,
3) President or other executive implements martial law in said country and locks it down tight.
4) Peace achieved!
NATO headquarters is on the outskirts of Brussels. It is probably about as hard a target to penetrate as there can be short of a Cheyenne Mountain type setup. But the city itself, from Midi Station, the Grand Place, Atomium, to the many weekend open air markets is full of difficult to protect crowded venues. As in most European cities without the Metro travel within the city will be a mess. So in terms of terrorizing and making life a bit more miserable for the average citizen or expatriate (something like 30% of the city’s population) the serpents they consciously opened their bosom to have already succeeded.
If you just export all the Muslims out of Belgium you won’t have to lock down the country.
No Muslims, no terrorism.
BBC:
14:20
Salah Abdeslam may be equipped with a suicide belt, according to Hamza Attou, one of two suspects charged this week by Belgian authorities for allegedly helping Abdeslam return to the country after the Paris terror attacks.
Carine Couquelet, Attou’s lawyer, told Belgian TV channel LCI that her client had said that Abdeslam seemed very agitated in the vehicle that brought him back to Brussels from Paris.
“My client was very scared, they did not talk much and he [Abdeslam] did not mention the presence of weapons, but he wore a kind of big jacket, possibly a suicide belt,” she was quoted as saying by L’Echo.
“The Confederacy was the single greatest conservative resistance to federal authority ever”
Although not related to the thread, I like your tagline!
Guardian:
14:44
‘Security alert’ at Blackfriars as police block roads
There seems to be a security alert much closer to home. A tweet warns that armed police are out near Southwark station, just south of the River Thames in London.
My colleagues are investigating this latest incident and we will hopefully have more details soon.
14:48
Carmen Fishwick Carmen Fishwick
Brussels is on lock-down, with its metro, shopping centres and public buildings all closed for the weekend. The public has been warned to avoid “places where a lot of people come together†by government officials, and there is visible army presence on the street.
Guardian readers are sharing their experiences of what it’s like living in a city on with warnings of a “serious and imminent†threat of an attack. If you’re in Brussels, tell us what’s happening where you are.
Guardian reader europhoric, is in Molenbeek, the suburb of Brussels which was home to two of the Paris gunmen.
It’s been an interesting experience this week, with news reports on the BBC from outside my metro station and articles in the New York Times mentioning streets I often walk down.
I’m currently at home – the closure of the metro means I’ve had to abandon my plans for the day – watching the news, and can see a police helicopter flying low out of my window. The street is empty save for the occasional passing car.
The sudden attention focused on where I live doesn’t reflect my daily experience of Molenbeek, which is for the most part is a fairly quiet part of town albeit with significant unemployment and deprivation. Now the entire city is in a sort of lock-down, with shops and public buildings closed.
I was awoken by a phone call from my employer who is a British official body telling me that our offices may be closed for security reasons next week. Government ministers are now talking about sending police to search every house in Molenbeek in the near future. It’s a strange feeling.
Aum Shinrikyo
BBC:
14:57
More tweets are being posted about the unfolding situation in south London, where armed police have cordoned off Blackfriars Road, close to Southwark tube station.
Details of the incident are still unclear and we are waiting for more information from Scotland Yard, ...
Perhaps the Belgians feel that way.
I surely don't.
...”If you just export all the Muslims out of Belgium you won’t have to lock down the country.....No Muslims, no terrorism.”.....
A simple approach...far to complicated for European leaders though.
Indeed.
Dr. Patricia 'Pat' Medford: Now destroy everything in here. Burn it.
Robert Graham: What?
Dr. Patricia 'Pat' Medford: I said "Burn it!" Burn EVERYTHING!
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