Paris

Belgian authorities raised the terror alert level for Brussels today to the highest level, warning of a possible attack similar to the one in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded 351 eight days ago.

Prime Minister Charles Michel said the alert level was raised to category 4 in response to “quite precise information about the risk of an attack like the one that happened in Paris.”

Worth reading my piece Friday on the shortcomings of the Belgian security and intelligence services.

“The Belgian government admitted this week it had lost control of a rundown Brussels district linked to a series of terror attacks in Belgium and neighboring France, including those last Friday in Paris.

But while the government has promised to ‘clean up’ the Molenbeek neighborhood, that will be a tall order for the country’s demoralized and fractious security services.
And Molenbeek, where at least three of the Paris attackers lived, isn’t the only problematic neighborhood.

‘There are several other neighborhoods and towns in Belgium exhibiting the same high levels of radicalization,’ warned Roberta Bonazzi of the Counter-Extremism Project, a nonprofit policy organization.”

You can read the full VOA story here.