Patterico's Pontifications

6/20/2017

Foiled Terror Attack in Belgium

Filed under: General — Dana @ 2:42 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Although it’s still being investigated, an incident in Belgium is being described by the Belgian federal prosecutor as a foiled “terror attack”. The incident took place at one of the country’s busiest train stations. Thankfully, no one appears to been killed or injured, aside from the suspect:

Belgian troops patrolling a major train station in Brussels have “neutralised” a person following an explosion.

Police say they are unable to confirm media reports that the suspect was wearing an explosive belt and had wires coming out of their clothes.

The incident took place at Brussels Central – one of the country’s busiest stations – and Belgium’s federal prosecutor says it is being treated as terrorism.

A police spokesman said: “There was an explosion around a person. That person was neutralised by the soldiers that were on the scene.”

The federal prosecutor added they cannot confirm if the suspect who was shot is still alive – however, no civilians appear to have been injured or killed in the explosion.

And the AP is reporting this:

Nicolas Van Herreweghen, who works for Belgium’s national rail company, said the male suspect was very agitated, yelling about jihadists and then “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” before blowing up something on a baggage trolley.

He said the man appeared to be 30 to 35 years of age.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

14 Responses to “Foiled Terror Attack in Belgium”

  1. Have we reached the “whatever” stage of response to the increasing number of attacks, whether foiled or not? Because sometimes it sure seems that way.

    Dana (023079)

  2. Terrorist killed, nobody else. It seems like something the terrorist was using didn’t work maybe.

    Early report from heavy.com:

    http://heavy.com/news/2017/06/isis-islamic-state-brussels-central-train-belgium-terrorist-attack-explosions-suspect-motive-pictures-photo-video/

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  3. Suicide belt reported, but was this a fake one, like the ones in London?

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  4. He sleeps above the train platform…

    Three feet above the train platform

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  5. That’s why you always use a belt and suspenders.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  6. Correction: Terrorist not killed, only wounded.

    Worry that a second attack somewhere in Bruseels is imminent.

    Time of attempted attack about 3 pm EDT (9 PM in Brussels)

    Travel disrupted.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  7. Daily Mail has him shot dead – and also blowing himself up.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4622952/Explosion-reported-Brussels-central-station.html

    I don’t think anyone is clear what did happen, except that police and soldiers are all over the station.

    The presumed terrroist is also supposed to have been threatening passengers and supposedly shouted Allahu-Akbar (thereby giving notice?)

    Jittery police maybe? Terroist with non-working explosives? We’ll find out very soon.

    O

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  8. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/suspect-neutralised-after-explosion-at-brussels-central-station/news-story/f1c04c576afdcef631cc07fd59bda503

    “At 8.30 (4.30amAEST) the explosion occurred at the Central Station, of a relatively small size. The suspected perpetrator was immediately neutralized by the military soldiers. We can not yet say whether he has passed away,” Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman from the Prosecutors office said.

    Nicolas Van Herrewegen, a train station employee who saw the attacker, told the Belgium press agency that the man yelled “Allahu Akbar” before the blast.

    “He [The suspect] cried ‘Allahu Akbar’, and he blew up a trolley. I was behind a wall when it exploded,” he said.

    “I went down and alerted my colleagues to evacuate everyone. He was still around but after that we didn’t see him. It wasn’t exactly a big explosion but the impact was pretty big. People were running away.”

    In Manchester there was also supposed to be small explosion before the bigger one.

    As for what the trolley was:

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trolley

    3 chiefly British

    a cart or wheeled stand used for conveying something (such as food or books)

    4 dialectal, England

    a cart of any of various kinds

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  9. “Jittery police maybe?”

    Not at all. The decision to put down the rabid jihadi immediately is consonant with the policy change which has become apparent over the past year or so. No negotiation, no hesitation – dying like a dog in the street is the only reward for a jihadi. Mattis outlined a similar policy for the remainder of ISIS when US forces encounter them and the Iraqis and Syrians are using the same ROE in the final reduction of Mosul and Raqqa.

    Rick Ballard (5397ef)

  10. But please don’t profile.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  11. Greetings:

    As my favorite Platoon Sergeant taught us, “Dead is good. Deader is better. Deadest is bestest.”.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  12. It looks like he set himself ablaze, not exploded but ymmv now is he part of the network of mama jihad released last uear.

    narciso (d1f714)

  13. I referred to the network last summer here:

    http://narcisoscorner.blogspot.com/?m=1

    narciso (d1f714)

  14. Dana@1
    Perhaps. If anyone here mentioned this, I missed it
    http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/19/europe/paris-police-operation/index.html

    kishnevi (682c47)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0661 secs.