2023-10-17 06:27:00
Gilles Vanden Burre, federal deputy and former commissioner of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the attacks in Brussels and Paris, was the guest of “Café sansfilter” this Tuesday morning. He mentioned the attack committed this Monday evening by a member of the Islamic State in the heart of Brussels, killing two Swedish supporters and injuring a third person.
This morning, during a press conference, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo confirmed during a press conference that the state of terrorist threat remains, in the Brussels region, at 4 (Editor’s note: its maximum) on the OCAM scale. “The organization which analyzes the terrorist threat has raised it to 4 because there is still a potential risk of danger. For the rest of the country we are at 3, which is high. There is not a bunch of automatic measures. The OCAM will send the government information on the level of the threat but there is no automaticity of the measures. Which seems normal to me because one case of violence is not the other. We will have to see during the day what measures can be taken,” confides Gilles Vanden Burre.
This Tuesday morning, European and Flemish schools are closing their doors but in Wallonia, Caroline Désir confirmed in a new circular that Walloon schools will remain open. “We will need harmonization over the coming days. At some point, you need a centralized line of command,” confides our guest.
Alexander De Croo has reinforced security in several places, particularly around the Swedish community. For our guest, it was important to increase security around certain key locations. “The terrorist explicitly targeted Swedish fans last night. It is very important to have reinforced certain places with the Brussels police zones. We will see if the Federal Reserve will have to intervene too.”
During Monday evening, Gilles Vanden Burre was struck by the calm that existed among the supporters confined in the stadium. “I saw 35,000 people in a stadium who showed calm, serenity and above all humanity. They sang for the Swedes to reassure them. I want to draw inspiration from that this morning”.
The match was also stopped at half-time. A different outcome of the match between France and Germany when Paris was hit by a terrorist attack. “These are two terrorist attacks but it is difficult to compare these two situations. Today, we are dealing with a lone wolf who commits an isolated act and takes responsibility for it. We see that it is a single person who has no logistics behind it and therefore it is very different from the attacks of 2015 in France and 2016 in Belgium. Today, the Islamic State is no longer active and has been dismantled, so the situation is very different.”
Should we be wary of this man who was known to the justice system in Belgium and in his country but not on the OCAM lists? Was there a failure? Gilles Vanden Burre does not want to make comments without having all the elements. “If he is not listed for radicalization, it is difficult to follow him, especially if he was staying illegally in Belgium.”
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