Brussels terror attacks: ISIS jihadists strike heart of a fraying Europe
Attacks dramatised need for coordinated European response to terrorism
Europe’s leaders pledged a united front against Islamic State after the bomb attacks that killed at least 31 people in Brussels, but the jihadist group’s latest and powerfully symbolic strike may only widen the continent’s divisions.
The synchronised explosions during Tuesday morning’s rush hour targeted the core of the European Union at a time when a deluge of refugees from the Middle East is testing the bloc’s dedication to open borders and stirring up anti-foreigner demagoguery.
“We will act with all our force to defend ourselves,” Prime Minister Charles Michel told reporters, adding that the country will observe three days of mourning. “Our freedom was hit in the heart this morning in Brussels, as it was several months ago in Paris. It’s a common battle, a battle without borders.”
Police released a still from closed-circuit TV footage showing three men pushing baggage carts whom they suspect were involved in the attack at the airport. The office of Frederic Van Leeuw, Belgium’s federal prosecutor, said in a statement that two of the men likely carried out suicide attacks, while the third was being sought. Islamic State claimed responsibility.
“There may be other individuals on the run today,” Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders told RTL TV. “We feared it would happen in Brussels and it did.”
Palpable Risks
The risks are palpable for the future of passport-free travel within 26 European countries, seven of which have already partly reinstated border checks. Even as police sifted through body parts and shredded suitcases at the airport departure hall, the Brussels murders roiled European politics.
In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron criticized the anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party for exploiting the assaults to make the case for Britain to leave the EU, a decision voters will make in a June referendum that polls suggest will be a close call. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is fighting opponents within her own government pushing her to back away from her open-door policy for asylum seekers.
“There is a growing perception among European public opinion that EU leaders are not in control of the continent’s terrorist threat,” Mujtaba Rahman, a former EU official who is now director of European analysis at the Eurasia Group in London, said in a note to clients. “This will in turn put more pressure on incumbent governments and limit their space for policy action to address Europe’s multiple crises.”
Joint Statement
In a rare joint statement, EU leaders -- still at odds over refugees and how to stimulate the economy -- expressed solidarity with Belgium and said they’re “determined to face this threat together with all necessary means.”
The timing, only four days after the arrest in Brussels of Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the only surviving perpetrator of the Paris massacres, was a brazen signal of the unrelenting threat Europe faces even with some terrorist operatives behind bars. The attack also shows the vulnerability of open societies such as Belgium, where authorities have been on alert since the slaughter in the French capital after the discovery that some of the suspects had lived in Brussels.
Prosecutor Van Leeuw told reporters that two suspects probably blew themselves up, adding that it was too early to confirm links with the Paris attacks.
Brussels returned to the same type of lockdown that accompanied a heightened state of alert for several days after the Paris attacks. Belgian officials urged people to stay where they were and to communicate via social media to avoid putting excess strain on already overloaded mobile phone networks. Car and truck access to Brussels was curbed and some tunnels were shut.
Access roads and rail lines were halted to the airport, in the suburb of Zaventem, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from central Brussels. The airport will not reopen Wednesday as crews assess the damage. The city’s transit authority, which had earlier suspended its entire subway, tram and bus network, announced that some bus routes and at least one tram would start running in the evening.
“People ask me if I’m scared,” said Agnieszka Lukaszczyk, 35, who works at the European Commission in a building close to the Maelbeek station. “I’m not scared actually, I’m just very sad, very angry and I feel hopeless, and that is the worst - the hopelessness.”
