Posted on 03/23/2016 4:17:54 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
U.S. counterterrorism officials are frustrated and angry at Belgium’s inability to tackle ISIS terror cells that are successfully plotting murderous attacks on the West from inside the country’s tiny capital city.
The twin terror attacks in Brussels that left at least 30 dead and 230 injured on Tuesday, despite repeated warnings from Washington, left U.S. officials fuming.
A senior U.S. intelligence officer likened the Belgian security forces to “children.”
“It’s really shitty tradecraft,” the agent told The Daily Beast.
Brussels has become a hotbed of terrorism—concentrated in the Molenbeek district near the city center—and yet the Belgians have made little progress in disrupting a network of violent extremists linked to last year’s Paris attacks that killed 130 people.
Even before the arrest last week in Brussels of Salah Abdeslam, a suspected terrorist behind the Paris attack, there were worries among many U.S. counter terrorism officials of an attack in Belgium. The Belgian authorities had long struggled to resource a counter terrorism campaign. At the same time, it ostracized its burgeoning minority communities, creating isolated enclaves like Molenbeek where potential jihadists could easily hide.
After Abdeslam's arrest, many in Belgium feared a retaliatory attack. But while U.S. officials sought to help as part of a growing push for U.S. and European cooperation, there were limits, given Belgium’s limited security resources and amid a growing migration community from places like Syria.
News of today’s attack was met in some parts of Washington with resigned frustration.
“There was only so much we could do to help,” one official explained to the Daily Beast.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
The German shepherd K9 at my train station looked a little more ornery today. Maybe his handler told him something.
The German shepherd K9 at my train station looked a little more ornery today. Maybe his handler told him something.
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