Brussels law enforcement authorities questioned,
then freed two suspects in Paris attacks.
By MAÏA DE LA BAUME AND GIULIA PARAVICINI 11/18/15,
12:16 AM CET Updated 11/20/15, 7:25 PM CET
In the months before Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, Belgian law enforcement had identified some of the men who carried them out as radical Islamists.
They had questioned and monitored them. But they never detained them. Nor did the Belgians inform French authorities of their concerns.
The failure of Belgium to spot a plot that investigators now believe was in large part organized in central Brussels, or to flag information about known radicals to France, raises pointed questions about the country’s law enforcement and intelligence services.
It is already forcing a discussion in Belgium, as well as at EU level, about the way information is gathered and shared on potential terrorist activity.
Molenbeek links
Less than 24 hours after eight terrorists, working in three separate teams, used guns and explosives to kill 129 people in the French capital, police in Brussels carried out raids in the suburb of Molenbeek. At least four of the terrorists lived in Brussels.
At least three of them were known to Belgian police. Early this year, two brothers who allegedly carried out Friday’s carnage in Paris were questioned by Belgian authorities after one tried to travel to Syria, a spokesman for the federal prosecutors’ office said.
“We knew they were radicalized, and that they could go to Syria,” said Eric Van Der Sypt, spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office. “But they showed no sign of possible threat. Even if we had signaled them to France, I doubt that we could have stopped them.”
Belgian security services had also been tracking Bilal Hadfi for months before the young man blew himself up at the Stade de France last Friday, sources at the federal prosecutor’s office and the justice and defense ministries told POLITICO Thursday.
“For several weeks, investigators put a tap on a house that was presumably the house where he was, but they didn’t find him,” said Sieghild Lacoere, the spokesperson for the justice ministry.
Belgian police had opened a case on Hadfi at the beginning of 2015 after the 20-year-old traveled to Syria.
“Belgium launched an international arrest warrant when he left,” said a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, but authorities “lost track of him until he was identified in Paris.”
European security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least one of the Abdeslam brothers had traveled repeatedly between their home in Brussels and Paris in the weeks before the attack.
The older brother, 31-year-old Ibrahim Abdeslam — who blew himself up outside the Comptoir Voltaire café in Paris — “tried to go to Syria but he only got to Turkey,” said Van Der Sypt. Law enforcement didn’t detain him because “we didn’t have proof that he took part in the activities of a terrorist group,” he added.
“He was interrogated on his return, and his brother too,” said Van Der Sypt, referring to 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, who is still on the run. It’s not clear if he tried to get to Syria.
Ibrahim Abdeslam denied that he had tried to travel to Syria, the prosecutor’s spokesman added.
Salah was believed to be hiding in the Brussels area, another Belgian official said Tuesday.
Missed signals
For Louis Caprioli, who ran French intelligence for 20 years and is now a consultant for security firm GEOS, the attacks in Paris expose the shortcomings in cooperation between national police and intelligence agencies across national borders in the EU that terrorists traverse freely. “Belgian authorities could have signaled to the French that these attackers would threaten France’s security,” he said.
Over the past two years, Belgium has experienced a spate of successful and foiled terrorist attacks. Last year a French gunman of Algerian origin killed four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels; in January this year, Belgian police killed two men in raids on an Islamist group in the city of Verviers; and in August, a man opened fire on a train from Amsterdam to Paris, after boarding in Brussels.
In all these cases, as well the Paris attacks, the suspects had links to Molenbeek, which Belgian police have raided several times since Saturday afternoon.
The older Abdeslam brother ran a café, Les Beguines, which had a rough reputation in the neighborhood and was closed down on November 4, nine days before the Paris attacks.
“There was a group of drug traffickers active in the café,” said Françoise Schepmans, the mayor of Molenbeek, who added that it was inevitable that “from such delinquency, it’s only a small step towards radicalization.”
_________________ Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
In firefights, real shootouts or any armed combat apart from large bombs etc, is that most hit get wounded, not killed. So if there were say 120 dead, this would (ie usually) or should imply double that in wounded. Otherwise, in this situation, it would appear people simply sat there while it went down. May be possible but note the lack of numbers on wounded or maybe I missed it.
You know what I don't get? Suicide bombers. I mean, really. What level of brain washing can do that? And I don't buy that virgin orgy in heaven either. Even the Kamikaze pilots didn't want to kill themselves. But these guys ... Is it for real?
Fintan have you seen the footage of the shooter hitting the cafe?
Wheres the military man in black?.
Actually, a number of cafes were hit in the attacks.
This was a different incident.
Still all we have is an eye witness account.
My thinking is how many red herring's are thrown our way in this?.
I'm not trying to discount the man in black report, but it reminds me of a Jewish man in the news who was allegedly stabbed by a Palestinian. RT interviewed an ' eye witness' . it turned out she was in the building at the time, but believed it to be a stabbing what with all the troubles in Israel of late.
I tend to be cautious of eye witness reports. Even if it fits with what I would like to hear.
You know what I don't get? Suicide bombers. I mean, really. What level of brain washing can do that? And I don't buy that virgin orgy in heaven either. Even the Kamikaze pilots didn't want to kill themselves. But these guys ... Is it for real?
I agree and read somewhere that the idea of Valhalla itself was to encourage warriors; implying some vested interest in the background perhaps. I once had one of the better books on kamikazes, crying at the end, where a few were ordered to crash into runways... If I recall, they were able to get out of that particular nonsensical sortie. But many of them had to crash into ships at night!! Now this is eerie on top of everything else.
I suppose if the Hitler Jungen (etc) held on in the face of obvious collapse.... We are creatures well suited for programming. Or perhaps, that's All we are. A little will here and there, within the greater cosmic Script.
I'm sure drugs have played a role...
Virgin orgy. I today cringe at the idea a person could offer that as motivation - never mind whatever recipients falling for it. But when the emotions over ride reason anything goes I guess. I did read however that Robert Monroe once saw this illusion in higher density.... But it was more the illusion where they were Trying to do it but couldn't. A mass of "souls" hypnotized. May have been his own illusion.
It's nice to visit this forum again but not for the reasons today. It's also nice to get some reasoned thought as to the potential untergang of whatever ptb.
Joined: 25 Sep 2006 Posts: 176 Location: Perth, Australia
Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2015 10:19 pm Post subject:
Jimbo wrote:
You know what I don't get? Suicide bombers. I mean, really. What level of brain washing can do that? And I don't buy that virgin orgy in heaven either. Even the Kamikaze pilots didn't want to kill themselves. But these guys ... Is it for real?
I have deep reservations about all these so called suicide bombers.
The MSM has now done a complete 180° on Hasna Ait Boulahcen the woman killed in the Saint-Denis siege.
Previously they described her as a muslim fanatic wearing a suicide belt.
Now they are saying she never read the Koran, liked to drink and smoke and had a reputation for having lots of boyfriends and WAS NOT wearing a suicide belt.
Now to conveniently offset this non suicide belt story they suddenly introduce a new witness "David" with no last name, a nurse who gave CPR to one of the alleged cafe suicide bombers, He claims he lifted his T-shirt and then gives us an explosive device description of wires and which one went to the detonator.
19 ANTI-TERROR RAIDS IN BELGIUM
AS BRUSSELS PUT UNDER ARMED LOCK DOWN
http://bit.ly/1Luqz4f
- Police say that 16 people were arrested in 19 Raids across Belgium
- Some of the raids took place in the Molenbeek area
- No guns or explosives were discovered in raids
- No sign of wanted man Salah Abdeslam _________________ Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
kiwikeith
So all those explosions were probably grenades.
Plus 5000 rounds fired by 100 Anti-Terror personnel !!
The apartment was so badly damaged that the floor collapsed.
So over 36 hrs. later before they found a third body in the rubble.
Needless to say, they were endeavoring to arrest the accused. /SARCASM
Needless to say, the tale of suicide bombers got the front page
whereas the delayed later correction of that lie gets little notice.
Quote:
Skinters:
Quote:
Fintan have you seen the footage of the shooter hitting the cafe?
Wheres the military man in black?.
Actually, a number of cafes were hit in the attacks.
This was a different incident.
Skinters:
Still all we have is an eye witness account.
My thinking is how many red herring's are thrown our way in this?
You're right on red herring dangers, so we got to get confirmation.
Working on that!
Quote:
Azoth
In firefights, real shootouts or any armed combat apart from large bombs etc, is that most hit get wounded, not killed. So if there were say 120 dead, this would (ie usually) or should imply double that in wounded. Otherwise, in this situation, it would appear people simply sat there while it went down. May be possible but note the lack of numbers on wounded or maybe I missed it.
Sure NOTE the lack of numbers on wounded - maybe I missed it too!
The slaughter at the Bataclan would have an atypically
high kill/wound rate -due to it being a leisurely kill zone.
But the shootings at the cafes would produce good data.
That's where we would most likely see evidence. _________________ Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
I'm seeing more articles on how the French security service screwed up, what conspiracy theorists call the "incompetence theory."
I would think if a guy or gal was suspected of terrorism or being tied to terrorism, real ISALMOFASCISTIC terrorism, then they should be locked up right away. But no. Apparently they get on a list and watched for a time and then get lost in the onslaught of other terrorism suspects. And then there is an attack. This where I have read "incompetence" becomes the issue. "We had too many suspects to track and these attackers were suspects but darn it, they just fell through the cracks."
There is freedom within -there is freedom without
Try to catch a deluge in a paper cup
There's a battle ahead - many battles are lost
But you'll never see the end of the road
While you're traveling with me
[CHORUS]
Hey now, hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won't win
Now I'm towing my car - there's a hole in the roof
my possessions are causing me suspicion but there's no proof
In the paper today - tales of war and of waste
but you turn right over to the T.V. page
[CHORUS]
Now I'm walking again - to the beat of a drum
And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart
Only shadows ahead -barely clearing the roof
Get to know the feeling of liberation and relief
_________________ Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
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