22/03/2016

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:00:08. > :00:13.This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.

:00:14. > :00:36.A harrowing IS attack on Brussels, on the open society it represents,

:00:37. > :00:42.What can the continent do to thwart these attacks

:00:43. > :00:52.But it is Europe which has been targeted.

:00:53. > :01:03.It is the whole world which is concerned with this.

:01:04. > :01:07.One of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, where most of

:01:08. > :01:12.Tens of thousands working for the EU and thousands more of course,

:01:13. > :01:15.Brussels was rocked by three explosions this morning,

:01:16. > :01:17.killing more than 30 people and injuring 200 or so more.

:01:18. > :01:20.International terror, attacking the whole concept of an international,

:01:21. > :01:24.Well, no-one is surprised this has occurred,

:01:25. > :01:27.given the Brussels connection to the French terror attacks last year,

:01:28. > :01:34.For a look at the day's events, here's Gabriel Gatehouse.

:01:35. > :01:36.I am about 300 metres from Maelbeek station.

:01:37. > :01:51.Behind me is the European Parliament building.

:01:52. > :01:53.It is eerily quiet on the streets below.

:01:54. > :01:56.People are gathering tonight at the Place de la Bourse.

:01:57. > :01:59.People are writing messages in chalk on the ground.

:02:00. > :02:01.Similar to the scenes we saw in Paris.

:02:02. > :02:03.There is always an emotional response to these

:02:04. > :02:19.events and a collective emotional response at that.

:02:20. > :02:24.As people were dropping off their bags at the American Airlines desk.

:02:25. > :02:34.These pictures show the scene moments after the blast

:02:35. > :02:38.ripped through the familiar rituals of international air travel.

:02:39. > :02:59.One minute before we were there at the place of the explosion.

:03:00. > :03:10.Vanessa and Xavier were meant to be travelling to Miami for a holiday

:03:11. > :03:23.They ran out in a panic with everybody else.

:03:24. > :03:25.The attackers had planned a third explosion.

:03:26. > :03:30.But by then, the departure lounge was littered with bodies.

:03:31. > :03:47.The two explosions at the airport came at around 8am.

:03:48. > :04:01.Then just over an hour later, 11 minutes past 9am, another attack.

:04:02. > :04:04.This time on a Metro train in the heart of the European quarter.

:04:05. > :04:09.Passengers were evacuated along the smoke-filled tunnels

:04:10. > :04:15.The bomb had exploded on the train up ahead in

:04:16. > :04:18.the middle carriage of a three car train, killing around 20 people.

:04:19. > :04:23.Above ground, a huge security operation began.

:04:24. > :04:26.People working in nearby offices rushed out to find what had happened

:04:27. > :04:34.People just covering them with towels and sheets.

:04:35. > :04:45.She was just sat on the floor, crying.

:04:46. > :04:48.In what was a very chaotic adrenaline filled moment, you know,

:04:49. > :04:53.There was literally horror on the streets of Belgium.

:04:54. > :04:59.All public transport in the city was shut down.

:05:00. > :05:01.Outside the headquarters of the European Commission today,

:05:02. > :05:06.bureaucrats were replaced by soldiers.

:05:07. > :05:09.If the aim is to paralyse, they have certainly achieved that aim.

:05:10. > :05:12.This is the heart of Europe, the place where all of the

:05:13. > :05:25.And look - it is under complete lockdown.

:05:26. > :05:28.Apart from the police, nobody is going in or coming out.

:05:29. > :05:33.This was not just an attack on Europe, but perhaps on Nato, too.

:05:34. > :05:36.This was not just an attack on Europe, but perhaps on Nato, too,

:05:37. > :05:39.whose planes bombing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and whose

:05:40. > :05:45.Police circulated a picture of the attackers at the airport, seen

:05:46. > :05:47.here pushing trolleys through the airport minutes before the attack.

:05:48. > :05:50.TRANSLATION: A photograph of three male suspects was taken

:05:51. > :05:58.Two of them appear to have committed suicide attacks.

:05:59. > :06:01.The third in a light-coloured jacket and a hat is being searched for.

:06:02. > :06:05.As police search for the man in the light jacket, the city was

:06:06. > :06:08.coming to terms with its darkest days since the Second World War.

:06:09. > :06:13.As in Paris, they responded with a show of unity.

:06:14. > :06:15.Only last Friday, one of the suspects in the Paris attacks

:06:16. > :06:24.Many have been waiting nervously for something similar.

:06:25. > :06:26.For those whose lives were changed for ever today, defiance

:06:27. > :06:52.Tonight, there are searches ongoing across the country.

:06:53. > :06:55.Police are Brussels have zoned in on an apartment where they say they

:06:56. > :06:59.have found an IS flag and another explosive device.

:07:00. > :07:04.But the hunt for the missing bomber continues.

:07:05. > :07:08.I am joined by John Crombez, leader of the opposition in the Flemish

:07:09. > :07:13.parliament and a former minister, and by Beatrice Delvaux, the lead

:07:14. > :07:28.This is a day nobody will ever forget.

:07:29. > :07:36.Very rare for the King to express him self like that.

:07:37. > :07:42.People knew that something like that could happen.

:07:43. > :07:44.But at the same time we were surprised.

:07:45. > :07:47.Especially because it was after the victory of the capture

:07:48. > :07:56.We thought it was the beginning of a solution, but that wasn't the case.

:07:57. > :08:03.John, the security forces and their role in this, is this something

:08:04. > :08:06.Belgians feel proud of at the moment, or is there a sense of

:08:07. > :08:13.The result has gone wrong because Belgium has been hit in a way we

:08:14. > :08:17.haven't seen before, or since a long time.

:08:18. > :08:19.We are confronted with networks of terrorists where the intelligence

:08:20. > :08:25.and the anti-terror units are going to need to be upgraded

:08:26. > :08:28.in a sense that they need the right instruments, the right number of

:08:29. > :08:31.people, the right exchange of information that is going to go

:08:32. > :08:38.Do you think this problem is bigger than Belgium can cope with?

:08:39. > :08:53.It is disproportionately big in Belgium.

:08:54. > :08:56.I just wonder if it is one this country needs help with?

:08:57. > :08:59.What is going to be important is that we don't consider this

:09:00. > :09:02.Like before when it happened in France, a French problem.

:09:03. > :09:12.This is where Europe needs to talk about shared intelligence.

:09:13. > :09:14.That is something that needs to be European.

:09:15. > :09:21.Europe should be able to manage this together.

:09:22. > :09:23.You talk about European issues and the international nature

:09:24. > :09:35.I just wonder whether, this is such an international city, isn't it?

:09:36. > :09:38.I think it was ranked the second most international after Dubai

:09:39. > :09:41.in terms of proportion of people born overseas who are living here.

:09:42. > :09:43.I wonder whether that shapes the response here,

:09:44. > :09:50.and shapes what people feel about the nature of the threat here?

:09:51. > :09:52.No, I think, basically the Belgians fear what can

:09:53. > :10:01.We thought that what happened in Charlie Hebdo and

:10:02. > :10:20.People here are aware that terrorists do travel.

:10:21. > :10:21.There is this link between the Belgian terrorist

:10:22. > :10:24.in the French terrorists after what happened in Paris.

:10:25. > :10:27.It was by French people and people who were born here in Belgium.

:10:28. > :10:29.But they can travel through the frontiers.

:10:30. > :10:31.They can travel between the countries because there was not

:10:32. > :10:33.enough exchange of information between the two countries.

:10:34. > :10:36.Salah Abdeslam was able to cross the border after the Bataclan.

:10:37. > :10:38.The French police didn't identify him.

:10:39. > :10:41.It wasn't that the French did anything wrong, or the French or the

:10:42. > :10:48.Belgian police, but if they don't work together it won't be solved.

:10:49. > :10:50.We have already started, in this conversation,

:10:51. > :10:58.having a small inquest into things which may have gone wrong.

:10:59. > :11:07.This possibly isn't the days of this inquest, is it?

:11:08. > :11:09.This is not the day for those kinds of difficult questions.

:11:10. > :11:11.Belgium has been hit by something so big.

:11:12. > :11:14.It hasn't been hit by something like this in decades.

:11:15. > :11:23.If we can manage this, we are going to have to manage this together.

:11:24. > :11:25.This is no time for politics in finding oppositions,

:11:26. > :11:44.People need to be aware of the fact that we can overcome this,

:11:45. > :11:46.we are going to need to do this together.

:11:47. > :11:49.We often think of Belgium as a country divided between French

:11:50. > :11:53.We joke about how long it takes to form a government in Belgium.

:11:54. > :11:56.I just wonder whether this is one of those psychological or physical

:11:57. > :11:59.shocks to a nation which, in a sense, develops deeper spirit,

:12:00. > :12:05.I would like to be as optimistic as you are.

:12:06. > :12:09.Like any other country, after few days, you have to go back.

:12:10. > :12:14.After the Charlie Hebdo, you know one political party,

:12:15. > :12:17.one Flemish, during two or three days there was a sense of union

:12:18. > :12:28.After that, the Flemish nationalist party issued

:12:29. > :12:34.a statement saying that it was the fault of the French Socialists,

:12:35. > :12:37.of the Islamic behaviour, or the fact that they were sympathetic

:12:38. > :12:51.I think today is maybe not the day to ask questions.

:12:52. > :13:03.Months ago, we had success against terrorism.

:13:04. > :13:06.In the South of France, we arrested people before and killed them before

:13:07. > :13:14.At the same time, we think we can handle this, but

:13:15. > :13:18.then at the same time, this happened today and we just ask questions.

:13:19. > :13:29.We won't stop asking them because of some union that has to be here

:13:30. > :13:36.Let's finish by asking, lifestyle changes...

:13:37. > :13:38.There are countries like Israel where security is embedded

:13:39. > :13:49.It's something everybody does because they have been used more

:13:50. > :13:52.of these kinds of events than most of us in Europe.

:13:53. > :13:54.Do you think Belgians, or other Europeans, are ready to

:13:55. > :14:04.significantly change lifestyles to put security as a higher priority?

:14:05. > :14:06.No, and I would say the reaction today is quite strong

:14:07. > :14:09.already, that people are saying, we will not hand our country over

:14:10. > :14:14.We don't need that overcome this, but we are going to need to be very

:14:15. > :14:21.strong and improve on security to do that.

:14:22. > :14:24.We can only say we will survive this as a society,

:14:25. > :14:29.we need to make security stronger, information stronger.

:14:30. > :14:39.Solidarity is one of the features in these ghastly days.

:14:40. > :14:41.Everybody declaring themselves to be at one with

:14:42. > :14:45.There has been a particularly strong degree of solidarity

:14:46. > :14:47.between the French and Belgians in recent months, both victims

:14:48. > :15:12.There was solidarity in lights tonight, with the Eiffel Tower

:15:13. > :15:15.But that has been tension between those two countries,

:15:16. > :15:18.Belgium bridling at some of the criticism it faced losing control of

:15:19. > :15:21.that district of Molenbeek, and any tension between Belgium and France

:15:22. > :15:23.points to a bigger problem, that Europe talks about solidarity,

:15:24. > :15:26.but exhibits too little of it when it comes to security cooperation.

:15:27. > :15:29.So we are going to spend the next few minutes thinking

:15:30. > :15:32.about different aspects of the threat and how to deal with it.

:15:33. > :15:35.This looks like a pretty catastrophic failure

:15:36. > :15:53.What do our security services say about this?

:15:54. > :15:56.There have been persistent reports that Belgian intelligence has been

:15:57. > :15:59.swamped by the caseload, and that is not coming from British security

:16:00. > :16:03.And the numbers would seem to back that up.

:16:04. > :16:06.350 jihadis from Belgium have travelled to Syria to fight

:16:07. > :16:09.In terms of per capita population, that is the biggest problem

:16:10. > :16:13.I spoke to counterterrorism sources here today, and they were reluctant

:16:14. > :16:18.to criticise their Belgian counterterrorist counterparts here

:16:19. > :16:20.today, but they did say that some don't have sufficiently close enough

:16:21. > :16:24.relationships with police, and I spoke to a former French

:16:25. > :16:26.government minister tonight, and he told me there is

:16:27. > :16:36.And to look at this, you really have to consider one fact.

:16:37. > :16:38.After the Paris attacks, they were hunting for Salah Abdeslam,

:16:39. > :16:42.and it took them four months to find him, and he was hiding in plain

:16:43. > :16:49.And given the nature of the targets today, it was

:16:50. > :16:56.an airport, but it was landside, not air side, so no security.

:16:57. > :16:59.What's to security people think you can do about those kinds of targets

:17:00. > :17:08.Protecting a soft target is the key, clearly, and I have been speaking to

:17:09. > :17:10.security experts today talking about a rather controversial technique

:17:11. > :17:12.called behavioural analysis, and this basically means putting

:17:13. > :17:18.plainclothes people into locations where they can watch passengers

:17:19. > :17:21.before they pass through security, before they mount planes and trains,

:17:22. > :17:30.and this is what one security expert had to say to me today.

:17:31. > :17:37.Behavioural analysis is all about identifying somebody was

:17:38. > :17:41.negative intent, it doesn't matter whether it is a passenger,

:17:42. > :17:48.I have long advocated that this should either

:17:49. > :17:51.primary method of screening at airports, in the UK and worldwide,

:17:52. > :17:54.and there has been so much resistance over the years because

:17:55. > :17:57.people feel that we are going to be racially profiling people

:17:58. > :18:04.rather than making intelligent decisions based on common sense.

:18:05. > :18:07.Richard Watson, thank you very much indeed.

:18:08. > :18:09.We can't be tough on terror or the causes

:18:10. > :18:12.of terror without understanding the things that make it flourish.

:18:13. > :18:15.To understand those things by the way is not to justify them

:18:16. > :18:20.And sadly, fairly or not, it's the Brussels district

:18:21. > :18:23.of Molenbeek that often comes up as exhibit number one, of community

:18:24. > :18:30.Secunder Kermani has been spending time in Molenbeek, he's

:18:31. > :18:33.been making a Panorama programme that will air tomorrow night.

:18:34. > :18:37.And it isn't just Molenbeek that is the focus

:18:38. > :18:44.Yes, we have seen raids in a district

:18:45. > :18:49.called Schaerbeek, about 15 minutes from Molenbeek, both of these areas

:18:50. > :18:58.They are in a geographical semicircle of deprived areas

:18:59. > :19:03.around a central canal in Brussels, and we have seen people look

:19:04. > :19:10.at Molenbeek as the centre of radicalisation, but it is not as

:19:11. > :19:21.The Paris attackers, they came from Molenbeek but they

:19:22. > :19:23.also had a safe house in Schaerbeek where they manufactured suicide

:19:24. > :19:26.belts, and we don't know what connection there is between today's

:19:27. > :19:36.We see areas outside of Brussels, Antwerp is also seen significant

:19:37. > :19:42.numbers of young people go over to Syria.

:19:43. > :19:46.But with all those caveats, if you want to understand the causes behind

:19:47. > :19:49.radicalisation in Belgium, Molenbeek is as good a place as any to go,

:19:50. > :19:53.and I went back there today, as well as of course there being a lot of

:19:54. > :19:55.sympathy for the victims are today's awful events, there is also

:19:56. > :19:59.a sense of foreboding about what the events could mean for the community

:20:00. > :20:10.We don't know if today's attackers came from here, but it has been

:20:11. > :20:13.the centre of Belgian's problems with radicalisation.

:20:14. > :20:15.Just last Friday, security services here celebrate

:20:16. > :20:23.the capture of Salah Abdeslam, the final member of the group that

:20:24. > :20:30.Many in a support network all grew up in Molenbeek.

:20:31. > :20:33.Today's attacks have left some here worrying what will be revealed

:20:34. > :21:08.Belgium has a higher number of jihadi is in Syria per capita than

:21:09. > :21:12.anywhere else in Europe, and for the past few weeks, I have been spending

:21:13. > :21:25.One reason many in the Muslim community here and is that when the

:21:26. > :21:26.Syrian conflict started, authorities didn't seem overly concerned

:21:27. > :22:09.Molenbeek has 40% youth unemployment.

:22:10. > :22:12.There are a lot of disaffected young men here, and some are

:22:13. > :22:23.This Sheikh used to be one of Molenbeek's most well-known

:22:24. > :22:27.preachers, but is now in Syria with a rebel group fighting against both

:22:28. > :22:34.In Molenbeek, many labelled him a radical, but unlike a new generation

:22:35. > :22:55.of IS jihadists, he says he is firmly against attacks in the West.

:22:56. > :22:57.I asked him why he thought so many young people from

:22:58. > :24:12.For some, this solution to the threat to IS lies

:24:13. > :24:19.For others, it lies closer to home, but whatever the solutions are,

:24:20. > :25:27.they are already too late for today's victims.

:25:28. > :25:32.For many of us, this has been the driest spell of weather since last

:25:33. > :25:34.autumn. It is because the jet stream, the thing that