A primary analysis of Brussels attacks

By Sumantra Maitra
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, March 23, 2016
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People are evacuated from Brussels airport in Brussels, Belgium, on March 22, 2016. At least 13 people were reportedly dead after explosions at Brussels airport and a metro station on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)



Terror has struck Europe again, as we woke up to the news of a massive attack in Brussels. At the time of writing this piece, more than 30 are dead and more than 160 injured. Over the years we have seen two possible ways of coordinated terror attacks: one is the Mumbai-style, with terrorists in different locations simultaneously and indiscriminately shooting at people and holding hostages before killing them in a gruesome spectacle; the second is the London-style attacks, where terrorists plan and coordinate for a long time, have sleeper cells inside the city, and then, at a given moment, unleash mayhem. While the first tests a country's counter terrorism measures, the second proves that intelligence surveillance and monitoring have failed. In light of that, here are a few preliminary points policy makers everywhere should consider and think about.

Belgium and France are two of the most vulnerable EU countries

It is ironic that Brussels, the home base of NATO, is so vulnerable to London-style terror attacks. Salah Abdessalem, the man responsible for the hideous Paris attacks, had been hiding in Belgium for the last five months. Since his capture, Brussels has been under constant alert. Given that the holy week of Easter is here and Belgium had reportedly received terror warnings from the United States and Russia, and yet there was still this coordinated bombing in the city speaks volumes about counter-terror operations, as well as monitoring, surveillance, and intelligence gathering. It also demonstrates how far ISIS sleeper cells have penetrated into the two countries and how widely Muslim communities have been infiltrated. This means that all of Europe is vulnerable as ISIS loses ground in the Middle East and shifts its strategy to take the war back to Europe, by sending European jihadists back home. Due to free movement within Europe, they can essentially go anywhere and create havoc.

The NATO model is obsolete when it comes to terror attacks and urban guerrilla warfare

NATO, the greatest military alliance ever, is helpless in the face of terror attacks like these, a fact that has been proved over and over again. If these attacks can happen in relative peacetime, imagine if there were an actual war with, for example, Russia. NATO is a behemoth, stuck in a Cold War mindset, with the United States bearing the burden of security for Europe as Europe cuts down on intelligence and spends more on social welfare.

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