Brussels Terrorist Attack, Three bombs detonated - Death toll rising

Death toll is currently at 34 but is still climbing.
20 deaths at the Metro bombing and another 14 at the airport.

Please share any information you can find.

This link seems to have a pretty active update feed.
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-35869266

I will edit in a full article once I find one that properly explains the situation and isn't changing every five minutes.



If there is already a thread on this subject, please let me know and I'll have this locked/archived.

 

This is getting ridiculous. How do you stop a way of thinking? I just don't understand. Prayers out to everyone affected by this travesty.

 

I live about 25km from zaventem (the airport), NO one could leave their home, I was stuck till 1pm before I could leave, belgium is a complete mess right now, it's terrible. They literally just turned the level down to 3 from 4 in brussels and another terrorist attack happends. Terrible.

 

Are you saying you were forced to stay inside? I've only seen reports that people were strongly advised to remain inside.

 

I was forced to stay inside, yes, my whole school was forced to, I had a 2 hr exam in the morning and was stuck till 1 PM before I could leave.

 

Anything else you can (/wish to) share on the subject? It's rather interesting to hear from someone who lives relatively close.

 

Pretty scary viewing images of the airport/right after it happend since I've stood in the exact same entrance where it happend like 20+ times.

This was bound to happen, after paris and the people that made the plan actually live in belgium it was pretty obvious. I'm happy it isn't Antwerp since that's where I live.

After paris, everywhere where you'd go, you'd see soldiers with big guns ready to help incase anything were to happen, this lasted for a few months, it was called "level 4" security, recently they dropped it to level 3 security (probably because level 4 was too expensive) and now this.

I'm in contact with some friends that go to school in brussels or around brussels and they are STILL stuck there, they aren't letting them go outside, pretty scary if you ask me. Belgium is supposed to be a safe place to live, but right now, it's everything but safe.

 

We should be thankful that biological or chemical attacks haven't been used yet by ISIS, considering our 'world leaders' have nothing but empty phrases to offer after every attack, these attacks will just continue and continue.

 

I'm curious as to what you would do to stop or mitigate this if you were in their shoes.

 

My girlfriends sister was at that metro an hour before the bombing.
My prayers go out to all the families and people affected, this is getting ridiculous and I'm sure they're not done yet.

 

That question is (near) impossible to answer if you don't know what information the government(s) is(/are) holding back and/or acting on.

Oh wow, is she okay? I can imagine that being quite a mental shock.

 

Yeah this is the 2nd close encounter she has had, so she's now moving away from Brussels.

 

I agree. I just wanted to know what he would do from his perspective. I believe the root cause needs to be fixed with the religion itself, a reform needs to be made. If we work around that, we won't be getting anywhere.

 

I wouldn't be qualified to answer since I haven't looked at enough data, but I have some intuitions.

First, and foremost I think there needs to be a fundamental recognition of one thing. That is, quite simply, that Islam can be interpreted barbarically. The words on the Koran are part of the problem. I think a lot of people just refuse to accept this. They'll say you're a racist, and that not all Muslims are radical, or these radicalists aren't Muslims, or that Christianity is just as bad, or that they couldn't choose where they were born from. The conversation simply cannot be had in the present on a public forum, and so a comprehensive evaluation of the situation cannot be had. Everyone knows these bombings are a problem, yet nothing's happening. No one wants to accept the first fundamental step in solving any problem, and that is ascertaining , and acknowledging the problem, or the main parts of it.

Now I think that all people acknowledge that 'radical Islam', but a vast majority of people are not prepared to go one step further and call out the whole Islamic religion as part of the problem. This is an area I think where the 'God' debate is important. People are believing faeries to put derogatorily, which is fine, but there comes a line when what you believe in is being wielded as a sword. If this type of negative publicity happened in any other context the problem would automatically solve itself. If a celebrity was accused of rape then watch all the sponsors drop off like flies; they don't want to be associated with that. A sportsman accused of taking drugs? Bye bye sponsors. A group of people blowing themselves up next others because a book told them to? I would be distancing myself from that book, instead we get this one true religion and God nonsense, and apologists espousing nonsense arguments to support nonsense positions.

The problem is that people aren't thinking, and dare you criticize someone for that, another larger group of non-thinkers leap to the defense. Let's stop worrying about peoples feelings, cut through all the politically correct nonsense and try figure out what to do. It's a precondition of solving any problem. The difficult problem of handling this guerrilla warfare strategy won't be solved by respecting feelings. Recognition of the problem and the society we have created is paramount to solving, not just ISIS, but also I would say the heavily socialistic policies a lot of the youth adopt. It's no wonder a lot of the youths in America are angry given the conditions, yet they decide to turn to policies which made people in the USSR eat each other?? Which made Venezuela, the country with the greatest proven oil reserves, and having such reserves for a very long time (since before WW1 I think?), albeit requiring quite the refining process, Venezuela runs out of food in the supermarket??? People are still wanting these socialistic policies??? There's a concept called life-style creep, but there's also something called delusion, and some people today are just so entitled and delusional.

So for more practical things. ISIS derives a large portion of its funds from oil as far as I know. Last I heard Turkey was purchasing oil from ISIS. Perhaps our leaders will man up and sanction Turkey and eject it from NATO, or something to that effect. Think about it, we have a group of people blowing our people up, and our allies are financing that group of people?????? Maybe our 'world leaders' can actually take obvious steps to solving problems. Cut off resources. Cut off revenues, oil, water, etc. Yes, ISIS is spread around the globe and radicalizing people within our countries? Refer to what I said about education, the only reason this can happen on such a scale is our sheer applaud for ignorance. Does ISIS have a known stronghold in a given country? Why isn't that country doing anything about it? Give permission for other countries to enter and get rid of the problem. If permission isn't given, sanction that country. As for radicalization within our own countries, as far as I know, some mosques pass on dubious information. I would think some imams are passing on radical teaching to the youths. Perhaps locating these imams is in order, and a swift deportation necessary, or punishment via other means. People don't get radicalized just by reading the Koran, I would expect they need a bit more nudging to strap dynamite to themselves. Helping youths is also necessary, education, etc etc. Lots of things can be done, should be done, and some of them are being done (imams have been deported for preaching hate).

Some of my 'practical' suggestions may not be a good idea if considered properly, I don't know, but we need to have the discussion, and part of that involves acknowledging the problem. But really, Turkey has been known to buy oil from ISIS, so why the hell are we still allies with them? One thing's for sure, unless someone does something about ISIS, its guerilla warfare tactics won't be stopped, and you just have to wait for the more peaceful muslims to become less peaceful as they grow in numbers (a lot of them have ideologies that are repugnant to western ideals).

 

This is horrifically sad - one of my friends is studying abroad right now and she's near Belgium. Oddly enough another one of my best friends was in Paris when the terrorist attack there occurred.

Fucking scary and completely unnerving shit.

 

This is unreal right now - I feel as if this can't be happening because of just how absurd it is. Thoughts go out to everyone affected.

Part of the problem also is politicians like Trump - with the alienation that he's bringing ("keep all the muslims out of America") it creates a sort of us vs them mentality that is sure to start bringing some of the formerly peaceful muslims to the radical side. Scary to think that these events may actually be helping his campaign though.

 

Hello, my name is jafar
I come from afar
I have a bom in my car
Allahu akbar

On topic though; This is very serious and honestly, sad as well. Innocent people died today because of a couple of people who are brainwashed. Not cool.

 

Uploaded two months ago.

 

These things would only mitigate the problem and turn the globe into a terror zone. How do you stop a way of thinking ? If anything, this would only give ISIS more power in terms of being capable to recruit more people. Why is it the fastest growing religion to date barring what's going on right now? We'd be facing this with a double-edged sword however you approach the problem. As I've said before, there needs to be a reformation in the teachings of Islam, change anything that is polarizing and presented multiple distinctions from interpretation. This can't effectively be stopped if we don't handle this from the foreground up.

 

Islam considers a murderer, slaveholder, rapist pedophile the voice of god. People must stand up for these facts, and condemn Muslims for their worship of an objectively immoral man, and make them admit that Muhammad is not a prophet. Otherwise, they are complicit in the war against us that was started by Muhammad.