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 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
My condolences to the Belgian people.

As LethalShade mentioned, I am not sure I want increased security (or the illusion of it, anyway) at the expense of cutting back on one's personal freedom.

I am also hoping this situation doesn't spiral out of control.

We're getting a major terror attack every 6 months or so. Lots of minor, "lone wolf" incidents. Social disorder and sexual assaults on a large scale in several European cities. Millions of people are migrating en masse into Europe with little to no control of their movements nor checks on their identities.

I'd say the security situation in Europe has already spiralled out of control.

(Unless you're specifically talking about the current situation in Brussels).

Dropbear Victim wrote:
Such needless and bloody chaos...

Seen a couple reports of another explosion on a main street near parliament. Apparently it was a bomb squad successfully disposing of another bomb they found. Just how many bombs did they plant!?

This has since been confirmed by Belgian EOD (DOVO) from what I gather.


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Dutch antiterrorism forces stating the evacuation and bomb reports at Hoofddorp has nothing to do with the situation in/around Brussels.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
My condolences to the Belgian people.

As LethalShade mentioned, I am not sure I want increased security (or the illusion of it, anyway) at the expense of cutting back on one's personal freedom.

I am also hoping this situation doesn't spiral out of control.

We're getting a major terror attack every 6 months or so. Lots of minor, "lone wolf" incidents. Social disorder and sexual assaults on a large scale in several European cities. Millions of people are migrating en masse into Europe with little to no control of their movements nor checks on their identities.

I'd say the security situation in Europe has already spiralled out of control.

(Unless you're specifically talking about the current situation in Brussels).

I was, actually.

Even though Portugal is a nice quiet little town err... I mean country, most of the people I talk with are getting very weary of the situation. I'd say we're not yet in the total lack of control, but we're close. The next couple of months will be crucial, no doubt.

Reports now coming through official channels that none of the station closings in the Netherlands are connected to the Brussels situation.

Immigration, millions of refugees, thousands of unregistered migrants in Calais and other places. The UK brexit is not going away any time soon.

Europe is a total mess right now

These guys are invariably born and raised within the EU, mate. Besides, let's not forget how much easier it is to get in as a tourist than as a refugee; if you were trying to commit an act of terrorism, you're not going in as a refugee. It's ridiculous to connect those two.

 Bolognesus wrote:
These guys are invariably born and raised within the EU, mate. Besides, let's not forget how much easier it is to get in as a tourist than as a refugee; if you were trying to commit an act of terrorism, you're not going in as a refugee. It's ridiculous to connect those two.

This.

The refugee situation is just an easy scapegoat at the moment, and people with a plan most definitely will not be coming in as refugees. I mean, look at the background of the people who usually plan and carry out these atrocities.

LEOs with abnormally heavy gear (we really don't see law enforcement with rifles outside of MPs at airports, ever, pretty much) at station Hoofddorp, aerial footage apparently shows passengers leaving the international train (which comes from Antwerp and Brussels) which would normally skip that station and head straight for Schiphol INTL) one by one, hands on their heads.

Sorry but no fething way this is really just the quasi-routine thing they're making it out to be to the press, this gak is pretty much unheard of here.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
There is a certain irony in Brussels, the de facto capital of the EU, becoming a magnet for terrorists...

I think that might well be the point.

At the same time, this seems sudden for retaliation. More like a plan that had already been set up, and was executed in response. Maybe some bombers got trigger happy when one of their leaders went silent?

Brussels is a focal point for anti terror intelligence at the minute - way before the Paris attacks.

The municipality of Molenbeek is a hotbed of terrorist activity. Last Friday Abdeslam and several other terrorist suspects were arrested there, so there is a possibility this attack is a reaction to that arrest.

Newspapers are saying that the American airlines check in desks were targeted.

I've been to these places that were attacked, and to be honest, it feels weird seeing them done over like this.

The area directly hit had the check-in lines for AA and Delta and a Starbucks right around the corner.

 LethalShade wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
If anything, let's hope that this time, Europe wakes up and starts to strongly focus on security. Every single loss is a tragedy and anything should be done to avoid a similar event in the future.

Yeah... No... Maybe ?

I really don't want to see permanent laws ramping up security at the expense of personal freedoms. Terrorist threat or not.

Anyway, sincères condoléances to the Belgian people.

What Europe needs is an international crisis force that operates beyond an individual country. Traditional security in the form of governmental controlled and organized units is too ineffective to work against terror, they're inflexible and too restricted to immediately react. If you ever head to deal with transferring forces from one country to another, you stop to wonder why response times are that high. A cross-national unit of non-governmental bound soldiers will be able to quickly respond to any threat and is not hindered by borders or individual laws.

Obviously, this is a direct response to the arrest and capture of the terror ringleader the other day, but it begs the question: how many more active terror cells are lurking in Belgium or France?




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 Sigvatr wrote:

 LethalShade wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
If anything, let's hope that this time, Europe wakes up and starts to strongly focus on security. Every single loss is a tragedy and anything should be done to avoid a similar event in the future.

Yeah... No... Maybe ?

I really don't want to see permanent laws ramping up security at the expense of personal freedoms. Terrorist threat or not.

Anyway, sincères condoléances to the Belgian people.

What Europe needs is an international crisis force that operates beyond an individual country. Traditional security in the form of governmental controlled and organized units is too ineffective to work against terror, they're inflexible and too restricted.to immediately react. A cross-national unit of non-governmental bound soldiers will be able to quickly respond to any threat and is not hindered by borders or individual laws.

A excellent idea in principal, but a hard sell, because we all know that it would get bogged down in paperwork, funding issues, and questions of who provides the personnel and equipment.

Funny thing is, all of the EU leader states are already using the services of private military contractors for several purposes - with extremely high success quotes, might I add.

You hit the problem with absolute precision - paperwork. Doing something on a super-country level in the EU takes an incredible amount of paperwork and regulations and the current political direction the EU officially takes is shifting away from security and towards the left, thus further working against the idea of an international security task force...which would also be better equipped than any regular military unit would be. Just saying. Knowing the EU, however, in its current state, such a unit would be unfeasible as every single change in regards to equipment would most likely take months to complete and thus hinder efficiency.

Counterterrorism unit now apparently dragging suspect from train at Amsterdam Central station.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Funny thing is, all of the EU leader states are already using the services of private military contractors for several purposes - with extremely high success quotes, might I add.

You hit the problem with absolute precision - paperwork. Doing something on a super-country level in the EU takes an incredible amount of paperwork and regulations and the current political direction the EU officially takes is shifting away from security and towards the left, thus further working against the idea of an international security task force...which would also be better equipped than any regular military unit would be. Just saying. Knowing the EU, however, in its current state, such a unit would be unfeasible as every single change in regards to equipment would most likely take months to complete and thus hinder efficiency.

Perhaps the better option would be to let NATO handle it.

Britain, France, and Germany have excellent anti-terror/special forces units, and a force could be drawn from them. The Americans could get involved by providing the intelligence, and leave the bulk of the heavy lifting to Europe, so as not to get bogged down in American politics and accusations that America is bailing out Europe again.

Other smaller NATO members could provide personnel and equipment or funding.

Great. Now it's a real mess in my country. It's quite the panic and guess what, that's exactly what the terrorists are looking for.

We have military deployed for quite some time now in the stations. But of course, it can't stop everything. They just can't be everywhere at the same time.

Last information says there are at least 26 deaths. Number can be increasing, unfortunately. And now the witch hunt is already beginning, they're actively searching for suspects in Brussel.

Dutch police explicitly repeating statement that highly unusually heavy police deployments had nothing to do with Brussels situation.
One man arrested at Amsterdam Central, two arrested at Hoofddorp. One report states those latter two appear to be parcel-deliverymen who ignored police orders? Sounds peculiar, but no contrary reports yet.

edit: updated Hoofddorp situation

Nationalists in government are already talking about it being the "blackest day since World War II". It just makes me want to puke. They were the stupid ones putting all this security in place and they weren't even able to stop that. And comparing that to the same thing as World War II...

 Bolognesus wrote:
Dutch police explicitly repeating statement that highly unusually heavy police deployments had nothing to do with Brussels situation.

What's the motivation for saying that? Surely the police responding to the situation is a good thing?

 Sigvatr wrote:
What Europe needs is an international crisis force that operates beyond an individual country. Traditional security in the form of governmental controlled and organized units is too ineffective to work against terror, they're inflexible and too restricted to immediately react. If you ever head to deal with transferring forces from one country to another, you stop to wonder why response times are that high. A cross-national unit of non-governmental bound soldiers will be able to quickly respond to any threat and is not hindered by borders or individual laws.

Are you saying that we need a real-life 'team America'?

I disagree.

From what I see the police and security forces of Holland, France and Belgium are doing a great job. It's impossible to completely prevent this kind of terrorism. But they've arrested a number of people, each of whom when interrogated is likely to yield clues to any other cells still hidden. I am sure that membership of Interpol, NATO and the EU, and common languages, all help to make cooperation easier.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
From what I see the police and security forces of Holland, France and Belgium are doing a great job. It's impossible to completely prevent this kind of terrorism. But they've arrested a number of people, each of whom when interrogated is likely to yield clues to any other cells still hidden. I am sure that membership of Interpol, NATO and the EU, and common languages, all help to make cooperation easier.

Knowing that Abdeslam was able to hide in Molenbeek for four months, I doubt they will catch everyone involved.

The response is just so hugely different from what a normal "suspicious behaviour on a train" police response would be that it seems peculiar.

Thing is, Dutch officials explicitly stated that the threat level would not be elevated beyond the level it's been at for quite a while now since they had no indications of imminent threats on Dutch soil.

Subsequently something which would normally be a fairly 'routine' police response apparently does elicit a response from a counter-terrorism unit which hardly ever gets deployed, but which gets deployed in several places at once now.

Now I don't think anyone would mind an overly cautious response given what's going on in Belgium at the moment.
It is rather peculiar for them to then claim that this heavy-handed response at no point had anything to do with Brussels.

To be clear: I'm not saying anything fishy is going on. All I'm doing is stating that this sort of response is extraordinary around these parts (I'm guessing the idea of a SWAT like unit tearing through a train like that is slightly less remarkable to the average American Dakkanaut ).
Some elements of our security apparatus seem a little more jittery than usual, and that might be interesting to foreign users.

By the way, it now seems Amsterdam Central station had an abandoned backpack on a platform in addition to the arrest they made from another train.

 SirDonlad wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
What Europe needs is an international crisis force that operates beyond an individual country. Traditional security in the form of governmental controlled and organized units is too ineffective to work against terror, they're inflexible and too restricted to immediately react. If you ever head to deal with transferring forces from one country to another, you stop to wonder why response times are that high. A cross-national unit of non-governmental bound soldiers will be able to quickly respond to any threat and is not hindered by borders or individual laws.

Are you saying that we need a real-life 'team America'?

I disagree.

I'm hearing a real-life "Rainbow 6". But that's just me

Stay safe, Dakkanaughts.

 LethalShade wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
If anything, let's hope that this time, Europe wakes up and starts to strongly focus on security. Every single loss is a tragedy and anything should be done to avoid a similar event in the future.

Yeah... No... Maybe ?

I really don't want to see permanent laws ramping up security at the expense of personal freedoms. Terrorist threat or not.

Anyway, sincères condoléances to the Belgian people.

Condolences to them.
I would bee leery of "security creep." Once you get the Euro version of Homeland Security and Security Theater it doesn't go away.



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 Bolognesus wrote:
These guys are invariably born and raised within the EU, mate. Besides, let's not forget how much easier it is to get in as a tourist than as a refugee; if you were trying to commit an act of terrorism, you're not going in as a refugee. It's ridiculous to connect those two.

That argument only adds fire to the Trump/UKIP crowd (I heard Trump is the US version of UKIP but no one said what UKIP was).

Okay, gotta bolt.
Last update from Dutch language media: most of the armed response in and around trains and stations is winding down, some arrests (but not many), reports tend to indicate not too many suspicious packages/other things were found.

What we do currently have, however, is that apparently several media outlets are receiving powder letters (fake anthrax threats etc) and bomb threats.
Of course all of that might just be a bunch of donkey-caves deciding it'd be funny to mess around on a day like this, and nothing has really been verified as genuine even though several buildings are being or have been evactuated by now.

One university in/near Brussels has received a bomb threat they consider genuine and are apparently evacuating the entire campus.

 Frazzled wrote:

I would bee leery of "security creep." Once you get the Euro version of Homeland Security and Security Theater it doesn't go away.

It's already happening unfortunately.

I was wondering how low it'd be until Euro-philes started calling for "more Europe".