Bad times for Belgian institutions. Last November, letters containing white powder were discovered at the Interior Cabinet, the State Security headquarters and the Prime Minister’s office in Brussels. Scientific analysis has just confirmed that they indeed contained strychnine, a toxic substance that is lethal if ingested in certain quantities. It is found in particular in rat poison.
These letters were the subject of two deliveries. The first two were discovered on November 20 at the Interior Office, rue de la Loi, in Brussels, as well as at the State Security headquarters. The third landed on November 22 in the mailbox at 16, rue de la Loi, contact with strychnine injuring a colleague of the Prime Minister. This function remains carried out by the liberal Alexander De Croo, whose government has been in current affairs since June 9. Belgium still does not have a new federal executive, negotiations led by Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever having not been successful to date.
More than a month and a half have passed since these events and we still do not know if the two bomb shipments are linked. The investigation is still ongoing and no suspects have been arrested at this stage. The Prosecutor’s Office, which fears leaks likely to harm the work of the police, is stingy with details.
The attack of a probable unbalanced person against 16, rue de la Loi
This information was delivered the day after the arrival of a young man armed with a knife at 16, rue de la Loi. He was subdued by military police in front of the Prime Minister’s office. Nicolas G. – this is how several media outlets identify him – had already been involved in a similar incident last spring at the United States embassy in Brussels.
The Prosecutor’s Office mentions that when approaching the Prime Minister’s offices, “the individual made incoherent remarks and took out a knife.” The soldiers intervened quickly. They convinced the suspect to put down his gun and got him to surrender without further resistance. They then managed to subdue him. No one was hurt. Analysis of images from video surveillance cameras should reveal more.
Nicolas G., a young man from Brussels, suffers from schizophrenia, according to his father and mother who spoke in turn in the press. The man had previously tried to attack a security guard with a knife at the entrance to the US embassy. A judicial investigation was opened and the suspect was forced to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
This time, the Belgian police intend to let nothing slip through. The prosecution requested an investigating judge for attempted murder and prohibited possession of weapons. A psychiatric assessment of the suspect was requested. Its motives remain to be defined.
Conversion to Islam
According to certain media, Nicolas G., who studied political science at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), claimed last October to have converted to Islam in a message published on social networks. His Facebook profile is said to be full of enigmatic, even conspiratorial, publications.
The investigation will say whether this information is correct. For the moment, the theory of a mental imbalance is favored. But the Belgian police cannot just dismiss that of a self-radicalized terrorist out of hand, especially after the ten years that the country has just gone through.
In 2023, some 650 extremists and terrorists will still be subject to priority monitoring in Belgium, indicates the Coordination Body for Threat Analysis (Ocam) on its website. That is to say a drop of around 7% compared to 2022. At the time of the publication of this report, Ocam attributed this decrease mainly “to the fact that the brunt of the impact of the Syrian crisis is now behind We”. Since then, Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown and the Syrian context has changed.
Ocam has therefore revised its analysis and now notes that just under thirty Belgians are still present in the Idlib region, in the north-west of Syria. Between 5 and 10 of them are believed to be part of Abu Mohammad al-Joulani’s HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) group. But we do not know whether they participated in the offensive that ended Bashar al-Assad’s regime and whether or not they held a combat role. Nor do we know what links the HTS group maintains with Daesh and Al-Qaeda, nor whether or not the relaunch of jihad against the West is on its agenda despite the messages of appeasement launched. We remember that certain terrorists from the attacks in Paris and Brussels had joined the ranks of Daesh in 2012, before returning to sow death in the West.
332 threat reports potentially linked to terrorism or extremism
In another report covering the year 2023, Ocam notes that there were 332 reports of threats potentially linked to terrorism or extremism in Belgium. An increase of 41% compared to the 236 threats received the previous year, an increase largely explained by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as by the attack of October 16, 2023 which cost the lives of two Swedes in the capital of Europe.
The majority of reports were linked to the jurisdiction of Brussels, followed by Antwerp, Liège, Ghent and Mons. The threats were mainly expressed by telephone, by e-mail or by anonymous letter. The previous year, they were mainly made on social networks and through messaging applications. Around 7% of these threats were, at some point, considered serious. One of them was even considered “very serious and imminent”: the attack of October 16, 2023 perpetrated by Abdesalem Lassoued. Which didn’t stop the killer from taking action.
Since this attack, the general threat level in Belgium has been set at level 3 on a scale of 4. In the Brussels-Capital Region, it was even temporarily raised to 4, the highest level, before falling again. ‘a notch.
