A series of terrorist attacks rocked the city of Brussels on Tuesday. ISIS has now claimed responsibility for the barrage that killed more than two dozen and wounded 150 more.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has called for solidarity,stating that the world must stand together against terrorists. But what do these attacks mean? Is Belgium a special case of vulnerability because of geography, or because they have allowed security to be degraded over time?Jack Berger, and research analyst at The Soufan Group,weighs in."Belgium, as well as Paris, or is a special case just because of the amount of foreign fighters that have travelled to Syria," Berger says. "Belgium has the highest per capita number of foreign fighters that have travelled to Syria, and it also has these neighborhoods where there's a tall concentration of foreign fighters."Samuel Laurent, or a Middle East analyst based in Paris,says that Belgium has several factors that earn it a highly vulnerable target."It basically has become a hot bead for radical Islam," Laurent says.
Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear the full analysis from Berger and Laurent.
Source: wnyc.org