Brussels

Via GEFIRA,

Belgium’s Interior minister has asked for the solidarity march in honour of the victims of this weeks Brussels attacks, to be cancelled tomorrow amid security concerns. ITV reports: Organisers cancelled the event following a public plea from Belgium’s Interior minister Jan Jambon asking for the demonstration to be postponed while ongoing police investigations continued. Jambon said: “We are still all over the country in threat level three and there are enquiries, important enquiries, going on.

Najim Laachraoui, one of the alleged Brussels suicide bombers, was, according to the director of the Catholic high school he attended, a “model student”. Laachraoui was also a “veteran” Islamist fighter in Syria and is suspected of creating the explosive bomb belts that contributed to November’s Paris attacks, the Times of India reports: Security sources told local media that Laachraoui, a 25-year-old Belgian, was one of Tuesday’s airport suicide bombers, identifying him as one of the three men in the CCTV image released by police.

Following the bombing attacks in Brussels attacks, European ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss ‘policy’ in a push to combat terrorism. Reports indicated that they were preparing to push through new legislation giving security agencies direct access to telecommunications and other online data. A draft statement stated: “We are convinced of the need to … find ways, as a matter of priority, to secure and obtain more quickly and effectively digital evidence” So it looks like Europeans will have to give up more of their liberties…but is that the ‘solution’?

Earlier today and on several occasions since Tuesday morning when the Bakraoui brothers blew themselves up at the Brussels airport and city metro, we’ve documented the connection between the Brussels attacks, the brazen assault on Paris in November, and other terror-related events that have unfolded in Belgium over the past 14 months.

Here are some bullet points worth noting: