Council on Foreign Relations

Brussels Bombings Threaten European Unity

Ian Lesser
Europe is on high alert after twin bombings in Brussels killed more than thirty people, bringing mass-casualty terror to the doorstep of the European Union's hea

Europe is on high alert after twin bombings in Brussels killed more than thirty people, bringing mass-casualty terror to the doorstep of the European Union's headquarters. The attacks, claimed by the self-declared Islamic State, came just days after the capture of Salah Abdeslam in Brussels, where the planner of the November 2015 Paris attacks had been hiding for months. The Belgian capital is at the center of European jihadism due to the large number of foreign fighters returning from Syria, says Ian Lesser of the German Marshall Fund. The bombings "have given ammunition to those in the populist right who want to close national borders," undermining European unity even as governments struggle to improve intelligence cooperation to avert future attacks, he says.

Well, Brussels has already been attacked. In fact, in the latest wave of attacks, Brussels was in some ways the first. The attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels occurred almost two years ago now [in May 2014]. That attack in a sense opened this ISIS-inspired campaign [across Europe] including with the return of foreign fighters from Syria. So Brussels has been at the center of this for quite some time.
 
Belgium has contributed the largest number of foreign fighters per capita to the ranks of ISIS, and many of these people are starting to come back. Therefore, there's a large network of radicalized individuals here. Then there's the highly symbolic nature of the city as the home of the European Union's institutions, the center of Europe in many ways. In addition, historically it is a entrepot for all kinds of criminal activity, including trafficking in arms and light weapons. Many things come together to make Brussels a center of risk.
 
Photo Credit: (Laszlo Balogh/Reuters)