Explosions at Brussels airport

[zangtang]

Hope 'they' aren't sending him on to Mumbai - seem to recall from my travelling days, Mumbai is actually built on/ stitched out of seven 'islands'
- hope they're not having a vote on Palestine !

Zaventem: The old spelling of the municipality's name is Saventhem, but the oldest notation of Zaventem is Saventa, which dates from records of 1117. There are several hypotheses on the meaning of the name. One of them refers to the seven pools or small ponds that existed in the area during medieval times. Another one refers to small ponds in a sandy environment (sabulous clay). Others interpret the name Zaventem as a reconfiguration of zeven tommen [meaning seven (Gallo-Roman) tumuli or burial mounds] or zaaivelden (meaning field for sowing).

[Nordic]

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jorda ... 1687591648

Jordan's king accuses Turkey of sending terrorists to Europe

Abdullah tells US politicians that radicals are being 'manufactured in Turkey... as part of Turkish policy

King Abdullah of Jordan accused Turkey of exporting terrorists to Europe at a top level meeting with senior US politicians in January, the MEE can reveal.

The king said Europe’s biggest refugee crisis was not an accident, and neither was the presence of terrorists among them: “The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy and Turkey keeps on getting a slap on the hand, but they are let off the hook.”

Asked by one of the congressmen present whether the Islamic State group was exporting oil to Turkey, Abdullah replied: ”Absolutely.”

Abdullah made his remarks during a wide-ranging debriefing to Congress on 11 January, the day a meeting with the US president, Barack Obama, was cancelled.

The White House was forced to deny that Obama snubbed one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East, attributing the cancellation to "scheduling conflicts", although Obama and Abdullah met briefly at St Andrews Airforce base a day later.

Present at the meeting in Congress were the chairmen and members of the Senate Intelligence, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, including Senators John McCain and Bob Corker, and Senators Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, the Senate Majority and Minority leaders respectively.

According to a detailed account of the meeting seen by MEE, the king went on to explain what he thought was the motivation of Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Abdullah said that Erdogan believed in a “radical Islamic solution to the region".

He repeated: "Turkey sought a religious solution to Syria, while we are looking at moderate elements in the south and Jordan pushed for a third option that would not allow a religious option.”

The king presented Turkey as part of a strategic challenge to the world.

"We keep being forced to tackle tactical problems against ISIL but not the strategic issue. We forget the issue [of] the Turks who are not with us on this strategically."

He claimed that Turkey had not only supported religious groups in Syria, and letting foreign fighters in, but had also been helping Islamist militias in Libya and Somalia.

Abdullah claimed that "radicalisation was being manufactured in Turkey" and asked the US senators why the Turks were training the Somali army.

The king invited the US politicians present to ask the presidents of Kosovo and Albania about the Turks.

Abdullah said that both countries were begging Europe to include them, before Erdogan did.

Abdullah was supported in his remarks by his Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, who said that the Albanian president was a Catholic married to a Muslim, and that that was a model which should be protected in a Muslim majority country.

Judeh said that when the Russian bombing campaign prevented Turkey from establishing safe zones in northern Syria to stop refugees from coming to Turkey, "Turkey unleashed the refugees onto Europe”.

Both Judeh and Abdullah bridled at the $3bn deal offered by Europe to Turkey, noting that Turkey had only 2m Syrian refugees out of a population of 70m, whereas Jordan was facing “a bigger problem proportionally".

Jordan and Turkey are officially allies. The Turkish prime minister, Ahmed Davutoglu, cancelled an official visit to Jordan after the latest bomb attack in Turkey which killed 34 people in Ankara.

The Kurdish Freedom Falcons (TAK), an offshoot of the PKK, claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The postponed visit is due to take place this weekend and Davutoglu will be mindful that Abdullah told senators that Turkey was using the Kurds as an "excuse" for its policies in Syria.

Galip Dalay, research director at Al Sharq Forum and senior associate fellow on Turkey and Kurdish Affairs at Al Jazeera Center for Studies, said it was wrong to portray Turkey as having a strategic goal of establishing an Islamist government in Syria.

He said: "Turkey did its best in the first eight months of the Syrian crisis to find a political solution to the crisis, which would have included Bashar Assad. Back then, Turkey was criticised in the region and the West for being too soft on Assad regime and being too optimistic about the possibility of reform. When it became clear, after eight months of arduous attempts, that Assad had no intention of initiating a political and democratic process to meet the demands of the protestors, Turkey threw its weight behind the opposition. "

Dalay said that the claim Turkey was buying oil from the Islamic State group was a Russian fabrication concocted by Moscow after Turkey shot down the Russian fighter. "Turkey is not the only one saying there is no evidence to support this claim. The United States said it too."

The Turkish government would not comment officially on Abdullah’s reported remarks on 11 January. But a senior Turkish source accused the king of becoming "the spokesman for Bashar al-Assad".

He said the portrait emerging from these remarks was not one of a king speaking but of a "Western journalist with a fuzzy state of mind and little familiarity with the region".

He said: “Turkey is definitely carrying out an intense struggle against Daesh (the Islamic State group). Bombings take place in Turkey not in Jordan. When this is the case, groundless accusations by King Abdullah are totally unacceptable.

"Moreover, his tackling of the Daesh issue with such unfounded information also raises the question about whether Jordan could play a meaningful role in the fight against Daesh.”

He said the king’s claims that IS was selling oil to Turkey were not only absurd but showed that Abdullah did not have the slightest idea about what was going on in Syria.

"The king's statements and accusations against Turkey are not the first. Unfortunately, all of his allegations are the same as the slanders frequently expressed by the Assad regime.

"It would be to Jordan's and the region's interest, if Jordan, as a friend of Turkey, were to work for a strategic cooperation with a strategic power like Turkey, instead of acting like the spokesperson of Assad.”

[seemslikeadream]

Turkey's Erdogan Suggests Belgium's Double Standard on Terror to Blame for Brussels Attacks
Comments from Turkish president seem to accuse Belgium of inviting attacks by failing to condemn Kurdish PKK on equal ground with ISIS
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.710939

[slimmouse]

Gladio, ISIS, PKK

Find the lady

[Nordic]

Erdogan might be the biggest piece of shit ruling any country on earth. As pieces of shit go, he's the shittiest.

I call Hillary wretched, and she is, but he is a whole nuther level of wretched.

His horribleness is truly mind boggling. He makes Saddam Hussein look like JFK.

[Nordic]

http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/1.710572

EXCLUSIVE: Belgian intelligence had precise warning that airport targeted for bombing

Attack in subway likely also known in advance by Belgian and Western agencies; attack plan was formulated at de-facto ISIS capital of Raqqa, in Syria.

Amos Harel
23.03.2016 | 18:10 9 comments

The Belgian security services, as well as other Western intelligence agencies, had advance and precise intelligence warnings regarding the terrorist attacks in Belgium on Tuesday, Haaretz has learned.


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.


Despite the advance warning, the intelligence and security preparedness in Brussels, where most of the European Union agencies are located, was limited in its scope and insufficient for the severity and immediacy of the alert.

As far as is known, the attacks were planned by the headquarters of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Raqqa, Syria, which it has pronounced as the capital of its Islamic caliphate.

The terror cell responsible for the attacks in Brussels on Tuesday was closely associated with the network behind the series of attacks in Paris last November. At this stage, it appears that both were part of the same terrorist infrastructure, connected at the top by the terrorist Salah Abdeslam, who was involved in both the preparation for the Paris attacks and its implementation.

Abdeslam escaped from Paris after the November attacks, hid out in Brussels and was arrested last week by the Belgian authorities.

Abdeslam's arrest was apparently the trigger for Tuesday's attacks, due to the concern in ISIS that he might give information about the planned attacks under interrogation, particularly in the light of reports that he was cooperating with his captors.

The testimony of the detained terrorist, alongside other intelligence information, part of which concerned ISIS operations in Syria, should have resulted in much more stringent security preparedness in crowded public places in Brussels, along with a heightened search for the cell.

As of now, the search is focused on the terrorist Najim Laachraoui, who created the explosive vests used by the bombers and escaped from the airport at the last moment.

There is concern, however, that other cells connected to ISIS in Western Europe will attempt to carry out additional attacks in the near future, either in Belgium or in other countries involved in the war against the terror organization in Syria and Iraq.

At least 31 people were killed and 260 wounded in the terrorist bombings at the Brussels airport and in the subway system on Tuesday. Responsibility for the attacks was claimed by ISIS.

Belgian authorities have named the two airport attackers as brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui. Laachraoui, who was photographed with the brothers at the airport and was observed fleeing the scene, is the subject of a massive manhunt.

[Cordelia]

^^^
What a surprise! "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. " As if Brussels is Keystone.......




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmpHvOzlxE

[Nordic]

Yeah a lot of things adding up here, right? Turkey's Erdogan basically making a threat, Jordan's King basically corroborating that,now we know Brussrls knew it was coming, exactly where and how, Belgium about to consider Palestine a State, Turkey being the Motherland for ISIS and quite likely throwing a hissy fit about the Uzs finally stepping babk and letting Russia and Dyria kill off these fucking cannibal thugs ....

But no, it's "blowback". Please .....

[chump]

(thru the Memory Hole Blog)

http://www.amtvmedia.com/photos-of-dril ... or-attack/

[b]Photos of Drill before Recent Terror Attack

03/23/2016

Hundreds of emergency workers from four countries took part in Europe’s largest disaster drill that came weeks before the recent terror attack

Seven Tube carriages have been partially buried under thousands of tonnes of rubble that poured into a station when a building collapsed.

Hundreds of ‘dead’ bodies were today strewn across the horrifying scene of carnage, the victims of this major disaster.

These are the traumatic sights that scores of emergency service were faced with as they took part in the first day of Europe’s largest-ever disaster response training exercise.

The scenario involves a tower block collapsing on to the bustling Waterloo Tube station, which has been partially built in a disused power station in Kent.

Over the next four days, some 2,000 blood-covered volunteers will act as ‘victims’, with fake sliced limbs and open wounds recreating the blood and gore of such a large scale incident...

... more pics

[Nordic]

Okay, this isn't weird. Not at all.

http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/3 ... in-israel/

VIDEO: Brussels Bomber’s Brother Won Taekwondo Gold Medal in Israel
Haaretz

March 26, 2016

Mourad Laachraoui, brother of terrorist Najim Laachraoui, who blew himself up in Brussels airport on Tuesday, is a medal-winning sportsman who won the Israeli Open Taekwondo Championship in Ramle in September.

Fourteen people were killed and dozens wounded when Najim, 25, and another terrorist blew themselves up at the airport earlier this week. Another twenty people were killed and over 100 wounded in the simultaneous bombing of a subway train in Brussels.

Mourad Laachraoui, 21, told a press conference in Brussels on Thursday that he was “ashamed and sad” about what his older brother had done and declared that he would never be able to understand why Najim blew himself up in the airport attack, the Mail Online reported.

He claimed that his family had no contact with Najim since he left Belgium for Syria three years ago, despite living only a mile from the flat where Najim prepared the attacks.

“Our family has the same questions you all have,” he said. “He used to be a nice intelligent guy. I couldn’t believe it.” “I’m not trying to understand, I’m trying to move on and turn the page,” Mourad said. Asked if he had a message for the victims, Mourad said: “I feel for them.

Belgian officials have said that Najim Laachraoui was an expert bomb-maker, who prepared the explosive devices for both this week’s attacks in Brussels and the devastating terrorist attacks in Paris last November.

10 Dramatic Images From The Brussels Terror Attack
John A. OswaldMarch 22, 2016
Mourad was speaking for the first time since the attacks at a press conference at his taekwondo club in Uccle, a well-off neighborhood in the south of Brussels.

He spent six days in Israel, from September 3 – 8, while participating in the local taekwondo championships, according to a report on the ynet website. He won a gold medal in the 58 kg weight category, beating Israeli Gil Haimovitz in the final.

“We know the brother personally,” said Yehiam Sharabi, coach of the Israeli taekwondo team. “The relations between him and us were always normal and he would wish us shalom.”

After winning a silver at the world championships in South Korea last year, Mourad is on a program for young athletes aiming to win gold at the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.

Belgian officials have said that Najim Laachraoui was an expert bomb-maker, who prepared the explosive devices for both this week’s attacks in Brussels and the devastating terrorist attacks in Paris last November.

ISIS Says It’s Behind Brussels Bombings That Killed at Least 34
JTA/ReutersMarch 22, 2016
Mourad was speaking for the first time since the attacks at a press conference at his taekwondo club in Uccle, a well-off neighborhood in the south of Brussels.

He spent six days in Israel, from September 3 – 8, while participating in the local taekwondo championships, according to a report on the ynet website. He won a gold medal in the 58 kg weight category, beating Israeli Gil Haimovitz in the final.

“We know the brother personally,” said Yehiam Sharabi, coach of the Israeli taekwondo team. “The relations between him and us were always normal and he would wish us shalom.”

After winning a silver at the world championships in South Korea last year, Mourad is on a program for young athletes aiming to win gold at the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.



Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/3 ... z44K2tHjfl