The deadly incompetence of Europe’s counter-terror police

Final month, the Belgian safety forces demonstrated their deadly incompetence to the world.

On the night of 16 October, Abdessalem Lassoued, sporting a fluorescent orange jacket and armed with a navy rifle, rode round Brussels on a scooter, capturing individuals whereas shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. Lassoued, a 45-year-old Tunisian migrant, managed to kill two individuals and injure one other within the streets close to the King Baudouin Stadium, which was internet hosting a Belgium vs Sweden soccer match.

Over the course of 10 hours, Lassoued was filmed in several different locations by quite a few residents, performing calmly and with full impunity. It took till daybreak the next day for the Belgian police to lastly take him down. He was caught having fun with a espresso in a café within the Schaerbeek district. That he was in Schaerbeek was hardly a shock. It’s an space so carefully related to violent Islamism that it’s often known as an ‘incubator for terrorism’.

All of this raises the query as to how he managed to remain at giant for therefore lengthy. After killing his first two victims, Lassoued even had the time and house to report and add a video claiming accountability for the assaults. And nonetheless the police had been nowhere to be seen.

It’s not as if he was wearing black and shifting stealthily via darkened streets. He was driving a scooter, carrying a brightly colored jacket and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. He couldn’t have drawn extra consideration to himself if he had been strolling round enjoying the cymbals and shouting via a megaphone.

Throughout the tense hours following the assault, Belgian police had loads of assist – not least from Lassoued’s personal spouse, who had proven up on the police station that evening to help the pursuit. Social-media users had been additionally ready to make use of movies of the assault and AI monitoring instruments to pinpoint the precise spots the place Lassoued had been. But even with key, near-real-time data, the Belgian authorities proved incapable of apprehending Lassoued.

As a substitute, he was capable of terrorise Brussels all evening lengthy. Certainly, 1000’s of soccer followers had been compelled to remain contained in the stadium till the early hours, when the police had been lastly capable of safe them a protected exit.

Including to the sense of grim farce, nameless sources have since reported that the police had actually positioned the terrorist after the assault. However at that time, they’d not but been authorised to take him down, so he successfully escaped.

The Brussels terror assault was clearly dealt with hopelessly. But to this point, solely Belgium’s justice minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, has resigned. He was already on skinny ice after almost being sacked in September following ‘Pipigate’. This refers to an incident at his fiftieth celebration, when a number of company had been filmed urinating on a police patrol automotive outdoors his residence. It appears the authorities’ mismanagement of the Lassoued case completed Van Quickenborne off.

After the assault, it emerged that the Belgian state had didn’t course of Tunisia’s request for Lassoued’s extradition on 15 August 2022. If you happen to’re questioning why Tunisia had been looking for to extradite him, it’s as a result of he escaped a Tunisian jail in 2005.

What’s clear is that Lassoued ought to by no means have been ready to hold out this terror assault. After his jail escape, he arrived illegally in Europe, through the Italian island of Lampedusa, in 2011. He then handed via Italy, earlier than being jailed for 2 years in Sweden for drug trafficking. He then lastly landed in Belgium.

The Belgian police must have identified since at the least 2016 that he was harmful. In spite of everything, Italian intelligence companies had already recognized him as radicalised and due to this fact a risk. As not too long ago as final 12 months, he had been flagged once more by a neighborhood Brussels activity power as a terror danger.

This horrific assault has clearly demonstrated the dysfunctional method to counter-terrorism proper on the coronary heart of the EU.

After all, after each considered one of these terror assaults, European politicians make the standard solemn declarations. ‘We’re united towards terrorism’, they may say on cue. But they appear incapable of doing something about it. And the risk continues to develop.

In accordance with the Spanish newspaper, La Razón, Interpol has put the variety of people in Europe suspected of getting hyperlinks to jihadism at 30,000. But just a few hundred are underneath surveillance.

That is clearly insufficient. It permits numerous, clear terror threats to function unseen. And we have now already seen the implications of this lax method. Take Abdullakh Anzorov. He was the younger Russian of Chechen origin who beheaded instructor Samuel Paty in France in 2020. He was not underneath surveillance although his half-sister had joined ISIS in 2014. Or take the Moroccan jihadist who, in January this 12 months, stabbed a priest to dying and left one other wounded throughout an assault on two church buildings in Algeciras, Spain. He was not underneath surveillance even though he was resulting from be deported. Or take, most not too long ago, Mohammed Mogouchkov, from the Russian republic of Ingushetia, who final month stabbed a instructor in Arras, France. The police had categorised him as radicalised and had been monitoring him. But when it mattered, they missed him.

Abdessalem Lassoued offers a case examine in bureaucratic incompetence and complacency. It’s clear that Europe is hardly defending itself. Potential terrorists are capable of transfer all too freely. European safety forces have to get their acts collectively, earlier than one other terrorist, hiding in plain sight, strikes once more.

Itxu Díaz is a Spanish journalist, political satirist and creator.