By now most of you will have heard the news that Salah Abdesalam, a suspect from the Paris Massacre of 13 November last year, has today been captured by Belgian police, along with four others. The French Minister for Asylum and Migration, Theo Francken, echoing the words of Paul Bremer when the Americans captured Saddam Hussein, said “We got him.”
Police very nearly caught Abdesalam on Tuesday, when he escaped from a hideout through a trapdoor, but he was finally caught today in an apartment in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, Belgium. He was shot in the leg as he tried to rush past the police cordon. Given that our forces have vaporised other ISIS terrorists in the past, one might say he got off lightly…
It is worth focusing on one key aspect of this news story – the fact that Abdesalam was able to evade capture for 126 days. Although the papers rightly point out blunders by police, we must also consider that the number one international fugitive cannot evade authorities for that long without an extensive network of support. From this, we can infer the following:
Firstly, a lone wolf, (or lone wolves), he most certainly was not. The fact that Abdesalam was able to hide in his home district; such an obvious place to go; and a district with a high proportion of muslim residents, reveals the weakness in the “tiny radical muslim minority” argument. That Molenbeek residents later took to the streets to protest, not the fact that their district had harboured a mass murderer, but the presence of heavily armed police, reveals the character and the depth of sentiment in the European muslim community.
Secondly given his direct ties to the Islamic State, the free flow of “refugees” between the Middle East and Europe is definitely a security concern. Indeed, this is Exhibit A in the case that this is so. Like the case of the San Bernadino massacre, in which a newly arrived muslim bride from Pakistan was able to commit mass murder, it is clear that much more attention needs to be paid to the security risks posed by muslim immigration. Consideration needs to be made regarding whether to limit muslim immigration or suspend it altogether, until Western publics can be assured that adequate precautions are in place to prevent the importation of terror.
And finally, we can be sure that more massacres will follow, as the numbers, the mindset and the means are all available for people from the European muslim population to carry out terrorist attacks. It is no surprise that Europeans are arming themselves.
Photo by Anne ღ End of a chapter.. 