Brussels terror attacks: latest updates

After the ISIS attacks in Brussels and Paris, radicalization — the process by which people decide to become terrorists — has become perhaps one of the most discussed topics in the study of terrorism. How do people become terrorists, many are asking, and what can we do to stop it?

A new study, by the Brookings Institution’s Will McCants and Chris Meserole, tried to examine this question by looking at the available data on people from around the world who have traveled to fight in Syria and Iraq.

As Belgium begins to piece together the unknowns from Tuesday morning’s triple bomb blasts in Brussels, cities around the world have been showing their support for the grieving nation.

The attacks, for which ISIS claimed responsibility, killed more than 30 and injured nearly 200.

Two Belgian citizens, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Khalid el-Bakraoui, were the suicide bombers who attacked the airport and subway in Brussels on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people and injuring around 300, the Belgian federal prosecutor, Frédéric Van Leeuw, said at a press conference Wednesday.

And several media outlets in both Europe and the US, citing multiple anonymous intelligence sources, have said that Najim Laachraoui, a fugitive wanted for his role in the Paris attacks in November, was the second airport suicide bomber. (Earlier reports Wednesday erroneously said Laachraoui had been arrested, or that he was on the run.)

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the terror attacks in Brussels that killed at least 30 people on Tuesday. The attacks represent a shift in ISIS’s strategy as well as a horrifying new reality for Europe. Vox’s Max Fisher explains how we got to this point:

In the wake of Tuesday’s terrorist attack in Brussels, which ISIS has claimed responsibility for, there’s one big question on everyone’s mind: Why Belgium? How did this small European country become a hub and a target for radical extremists?

To find out, I called up Peter Neumann, a professor at King’s College London and the director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. As the name of his organization might suggest, Neumann is one of the world’s leading experts on how people in the West come to commit violence in the name of groups like ISIS.

This post was last updated Friday, March 25.

“We dreaded an attack, and it has come,” Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, said at a news conference, adding that there were “many killed, many injured.”

Sen. Ted Cruz appeared to call for law enforcement to specifically target Muslim communities in America in the wake of today’s deadly attacks in Brussels.

“We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods,” he said in a statement posted to his Facebook page.

When the sun went down in Paris on Tuesday, the city lit up its most famous landmark in the red, yellow, and black of the Belgian flag as a gesture of solidarity with the victims of the terrorist attacks in Brussels. It’s a stunning sight, especially as similar attacks hit Paris just a few months ago:

This tweet is from the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who wrote in French, “Paris and Brussels are united. The Eiffel Tower lit up with Belgian colors.” The imagery doesn’t make up for the loss Belgium suffered today, but it might help Belgians feel like they aren’t alone in their struggle.

As the shock of the terror attacks slowly begins to settle and Brussels comes out of lockdown, testimonies from witnesses of the three bomb blasts in the Belgian capital trickle out.

At least 30 people died and nearly 200 people were injured after explosions went off at a subway station and an airport at 8 am local time Tuesday. The attacks brought the city to a halt.

On Tuesday, terrorists killed at least 34 people people in attacks on the Belgian capital of Brussels. An ISIS-linked news agency has claimed responsibility. While that claim remains unconfirmed, the attack nonetheless points to a problem that Belgium has faced for some time: A small but dangerous number of extremists have made the country their home.

How did this happen in, of all places, Belgium? One of the pithiest — and most insightful — answers I’ve seen came from Alain Grignard, a senior member of Belgium’s federal counterterrorism task force, in an interview with the US military publication CTC Sentinel. Here’s the quote:

In February of 2015, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s victory march across the Middle East began to end. Its first major loss came in the Syrian town of Kobane, where it was beaten back by Kurdish fighters and American airstrikes. The next month, ISIS lost control of the Iraqi city of Tikrit, defeated there by Iraqi troops, Shia militias, and more American airstrikes.

The summer brought more difficulties for ISIS, which would lose some 25 percent of its territory in Iraq and Syria. The group, meanwhile, sought to establish new “caliphates” in failed states — in Libya, Afghanistan, and Yemen — and in each would find only modest, and temporary, success.

Bomb blasts rocked an international airport and a metro stop in Brussels this morning, killing at least 34 and thrusting Belgium’s ties to terrorist plots back into the spotlight.

For years now, a number of terrorist plots in Europe and abroad have connected back to Brussels, the capital of Belgium.

In the aftermath of the explosions that killed at least 30 people and wounded nearly 200 in Belgium on Tuesday morning, Belgians and tourists gathered at the Place de la Bourse, the former Belgian stock exchange. On the pavement, they wrote messages of love and solidarity in chalk.

“While there’s life, there’s hope. We are hope.”

President Barack Obama addressed the bomb blasts that hit Brussels Tuesday morning from Havana, Cuba.

“The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the people of Belgium, and we stand in solidarity with them in condemning these outrageous attacks against innocent people,” Obama said.

Terrorist attacks rocked Brussels with three separate explosions this morning, killing at least 30 people and injuring more than 100.

New information about the number of people killed and wounded, as well as updates on who is to blame for the attack, are rolling in quickly. We’ve gathered what we know, but if you want to follow the events as they unfold, here are the sources we’re following:

After attacks killed scores in Brussels on Tuesday morning, Donald Trump appeared to go even further than his call on banning all Muslims by saying he would “close up our borders.”

“I would close up our borders to people until we figure out what is going on. Look at Brussels, look at Paris, look at so many cities that were great cities,” Trump said on Fox News a few hours after news of the attacks was reported.

President Obama will make a statement shortly from Havana, Cuba, on the attacks in Brussels this morning that killed at least 30 people and injured nearly 200. You can watch his remarks below. They’re scheduled to start at 10:10 am Eastern time:

After three bomb blasts devastated Brussels Tuesday morning, killing at least 26 people and injuring more than 100, people around the world have turned to an iconic children’s comic to show their solidarity with the Belgian capital.

The Adventures of Tintin, written by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi under the pen name Hergé, has long been a symbol of Brussels and a national hero in Belgium. Now it has become an emblem of solidarity for the city rocked by a terrorist attack that continues to claim the lives of innocent people.

The terrorist attack that killed at least 26 people and wounded dozens in Brussels’ airport and public transit system this morning is the second major attack in Western Europe in less than five months, after the deadly attacks in Paris in November.

And to mourn with Belgium, which borders France, the French newspaper Le Monde published an illustration this morning from the cartoonist Plantu that seems likely to become iconic:

The Republican presidential field reacted to the attacks in Brussels on Tuesday, each sticking with his campaign message: Donald Trump played up fears around Muslim immigration. Ted Cruz blamed Barack Obama. And John Kasich played the voice of calm, calling for solidarity with Brussels.

The explosions near the Brussels airport and metro have also wounded more than 130 people, according to Belgian authorities. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.