Interior Ministry official Peter Mertens said the attack did not involve terrorism but did not explain why he thought that.
Nope, none of these people were terrorized one bit!
USA Today
(AP) – A man armed with grenades and an assault rifle attacked holiday shoppers Tuesday at a central square in the Belgian city of Liege. Four people died, including the attacker, and 123 others were wounded, officials said.
It was not immediately clear what motivated the attack in the busy Place Saint-Lambert square, the central entry point to downtown shopping streets in the city in eastern Belgium. The attack prompted hundreds of shoppers to stampede down old city streets, fleeing explosions and bullets.
Interior Ministry official Peter Mertens said the attack did not involve terrorism but did not explain why he thought that.
Belgian officials identified the attacker as Norodine Amrani, 33, a Liege resident who they said had done jail time for offenses involving guns, drugs and sexual abuse. He was among the dead, but Liege Prosecutor Danielle Reynders told reporters it was unclear if he committed suicide or died by accident. He did not die at the hands of police, she said.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
4 dead, 123 hurt in Belgium hand grenade attack
Friday, April 30, 2010
UPDATE !
Belgium Bans People Wearing Burqas in Public!
The Burqa ban has passed round one !
The Ban has passed the lower house unanimously , It must now go before upper Parliament in June sometime , were it is expected to also pass !
Up next Muslim outrage !
Foxnews
Belgium is set to become the first ever country in Europe to ban the burqa being worn in public places.
The vote in Parliament for a nationwide ban on Islamic clothes or veils that do not allow the wearer to be fully identified was almost unanimous.
The full-face niqab and burqa worn by some Muslim women are not a mandatory requirements of Islam, but a personal choice.
People found flouting the new law could be given a fine of more than $30 or even be faced with a week in jail.
Vice president of the Muslim Executive of Belgium, Isabelle Praile, warned that the new law could be the start of a slippery slope.
"Today it's the full-face veil, tomorrow the veil, the day after it will be Sikh turbans and then perhaps it will be mini-skirts."
She went on to say that "the wearing of a full-face veil is part of the individual freedoms" protected by Belgian, European and international rights laws.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Belgium to be the next country to ban the Burqa
Belgian's parliament will vote today whether to ban the Burqa. France has already moved in that direction and most likely will introduce a total ban on the Burqa some time this coming summer.
CNN
(CNN) -- The Belgian parliament is likely to vote Thursday afternoon on whether to ban face coverings worn by observant Muslim women, the spokesman for a Belgian lawmaker said.[...]
The law would still have to pass the upper house of parliament if it passes the lower house on Thursday, but Senate passage seems likely if the Chamber of Deputies approves it.
Members of parliament have said they're motivated both by security and morality in pushing for the ban.
"We think all people in public places must show their face," Denis Ducarme, of the liberal Reformist Movement, said earlier this month. "We must defend our values in the question of the freedom and the dignity of the woman."
Friday, December 12, 2008
Belgium arrests 14 in anti-terrorism sweep
It's always nice seeing other countries bust Islamic militant Jackass's , I just hope that their legal system is not like ours where it seems to favor the bad guy's ! They used wire taping , to get some info on them , Here in America that would be a major point To contest for a defense lawyer ! L.A.Times
....
Reporting from Madrid -- In a major anti-terrorism sweep carried out as European leaders arrived in Brussels for a summit, Belgian police on Thursday arrested 14 suspects allegedly linked to Al Qaeda, including one who police believe was close to launching a suicide attack.
The arrests were made by 242 officers who conducted 16 searches in Brussels and Liege, while French police arrested two additional suspects tied to the group, anti-terrorism officials said.
The raids came after a yearlong investigation in which police tracked militants, mainly Belgians and French of North African origin, who traveled to Al Qaeda hide-outs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, fought against Western troops and then returned to Europe, investigators said.
Authorities said they grew alarmed during the last week when surveillance showed that a key suspect had returned from South Asia on Dec. 4 and begun making what police believe were preparations for a suicide attack. Investigators feared the attack might target the 27 leaders of the European Union, who began the two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday.
"We don't know where this suicide attack was envisioned," chief federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle said at a news conference. "It could concern an operation in Pakistan [or] Afghanistan, but it could not be totally ruled out that Belgium or Europe were a target."
The investigation featured one of the largest recent deployments of anti-terrorism investigators and wiretaps in Belgium. The allegations resemble a pattern detected in Britain and other European countries: Militants travel to the Afghan-Pakistani border zone and return to target their homelands, often directed from afar by Al Qaeda masterminds.
Belgian investigators said they had intercepted Internet communications from militants who described their experiences in combat in Afghanistan during the last year.
"They would say things like, 'I wasn't able to communicate for a while because it was really tough, we got bombed by the Americans,' " said a Belgian anti-terrorism official who requested anonymity because of the continuing investigation. "Or they talked about helping a brother who had been wounded in combat."
The combatants in Afghanistan were Belgians of North African descent, authorities said. The suspects were active in the underworld of Belgian robbery gangs before they became Islamic extremists, the anti-terrorism official said.
The investigation gathered steam as three suspects returned in recent months, and particularly when the suspect who arrived eight days ago sent "disturbing messages," authorities said.
The suspect discussed saying goodbye to loved ones and talked about a video that had been prepared for them, authorities said. Investigators believe the video might be a "martyrdom" message because the suspect's actions resembled the classic preparations of militants before suicide attacks.
"The information revealed that the suspect had gotten the green light to execute an operation from which he would not return," Delmulle said. "This information had to be seen in connection to a message intercepted Dec. 7 which talks about evacuating women and children. The exact meaning of the message is not yet clear, but it is known that before previous attacks that wives and children of people involved were sometimes relocated in safe places."
Despite fears of an imminent attack, no explosives were found, authorities said.
Authorities said one alleged leader arrested in Brussels was Malika Aroud, the Belgian widow of an Al Qaeda suicide bomber who killed anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud in Afghanistan two days before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Aroud has survived several attempts to prosecute her. She is revered in militant circles because of her fierce eloquence and because she came to know Al Qaeda leaders while living in Afghanistan in 2001, investigators say.
"She is really very important and very clever," said a Belgian law enforcement official, who requested anonymity because the investigation remains open.
Police say Aroud's second husband, Moez Garsaouli, also served as a leader of the group and remains a fugitive overseas. He allegedly oversaw the travel of Belgian and French recruits through Turkey and Iran to the tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, authorities said.
"The investigation shows that direct contacts exist between the group around the suspect M.G. located in Pakistan and in Afghanistan and important people in the Al Qaeda organization," Delmulle said.
Two Belgian anti-terrorism officials confirmed that "M.G." referred to Garsaouli.
Last year, the couple were among a dozen suspects arrested in a pre-Christmas operation. At the time, prosecutors alleged that they had detected plots to free an Al Qaeda convict from a Belgian prison and to carry out a bombing in Brussels.
Although authorities issued a terrorism alert, the suspects were all released without charges -- a frequent occurrence in a nation that has weaker anti-terrorism laws than its European neighbors.
Nonetheless, Belgium's justice and interior ministers said Thursday that the investigation confirmed intelligence that a bona fide threat existed last December.
"The operation carried out today proves that at the time, the evaluation of the threat by our services was correct," Justice Minister Jo Vandeurzen and Interior Minister Patrick Dewael said in a statement. "Very probably, an attack in Brussels was foiled."
The suspects arrested Thursday will be questioned, and judges will decide in the coming days if there is enough evidence to charge them.
