A local security expert says terrorists who detonated bombs at an airport in Brussels on Tuesday may have been trying to send a specific message in an attempt to lure the United States into a deeper global war.
“Where they detonated the bombs was at the American terminal. Terrorism is fundamentally about communication and provocation and by exploding the devices in front of the American terminal, they’re trying to communicate luring the states into this kind of deeper global war,” said Joel Day, an Assistant Professor and security expert at UMass.
On Tuesday, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for detonating several bombs at the Brussels airport and in the city’s subway killing at least 31 people and injuring hundreds of others.
Officials say the bombs used in Brussels used the same type of explosive, TATP, as the bombs in the Paris attacks.
Also, police in Brussels have concentrated their counter-terrorism efforts on Molenbeek where they believe the Paris bombers, lived, worked and became radicalized.
Officials also say the capture of Salah Abdeslam in a Brussels suburb days ago could have prompted terrorists to move up the timeline of an attack they believe was already being planned. Abdeslam is a suspect in the Paris attacks.
Officials say an isolated Muslim population with little interaction from outsiders breeds opportunity for radicalization. Recently, Molenbeek was the home of the gunman who opened fire on a Paris train in August 2015 and a French Muslim who killed four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014.
U.S. intelligence officials suspect all of these attacks were likely carried out by members of the same network of IS sympathizers that were involved in the Paris attacks.
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