Politics

A Israeli security firm with a shady past handled the security operations at Brussels airport, the scene of the terrorist attack on Tuesday.  Security firm ICTS have a trouble history, managing services that ‘coincidentally’ happen to be the scene of some of the biggest terrorist incidents of recent times. ICTS security missed several of the 9/11 hijackers who flew out of Boston’s Logan airport on September 11th 2001. The same Israeli security team also handled security for London’s bus network during the 7/7 London bombings.

Belgian and Western authorities knew the details about the ISIS attack in Brussels on Tuesday, but failed to do anything about it.  The Belgian security services knew precise details about the attack plan, which was formulated at the de-factor ISIS capital of Raqqa, in Syria. Haaretz.com reports: The security services knew, with a high degree of certainty, that attacks were planned in the very near future for the airport and, apparently, for the subway as well.

The Pentagon have confirmed that they knew about the Brussels attacks in advance saying that they had foreknowledge that ISIS had planned to launch an attack on the city. Despite the intelligence the U.S. were still unable to prevent Tuesday’s tragedy.  Three officials told Reuters that whilst the United States government knew the attacks were going to take place, they did not know exactly when or where they would occur.

The US Republican presidential race got even nastier on Wednesday when two main contenders exchanged cryptic tweets and Donald Trump threatened to ‘spill the beans’ on Senator Ted Cruz’s wife. A naked photo of Melania Trump set off the latest Republican presidential dispute on Twitter. Senator Cruz sent a Tweet to the Donald warning him to lay off his Mrs and to google his facts before launching cowardly attacks. The Independent reports: Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife! — Donald J.

Peter Suderman comments on Paul Ryan’s underwhelming speech on American politics:

The framing of the announcement raised expectations that Ryan, who has made several speeches indirectly criticizing Trumpish behavior but has also indicated that he would back the candidate if he became the party’s presidential nominee, might finally address Trump directly. Which, of course, would be a big deal given that Ryan is, in addition to being the Speaker of the House, arguably the institutional voice of the party right now, its chief spokesperson and visionary.