Brussels Shliach: Authorities Don’t Understand Security

Following Tuesday’s deadly terrorist attacks at Brussels Airport and at a metro station, Chabad emissary Rabbi Menachem Hadad, spiritual leader of the Shomre Hadas Orthodox community in the city, said the Belgian authorities have “no understanding of security issues.”

From European Jewish News:

In an interview with Galei Tsahal, Israel’s Army Radio, Rabbi Hadad expressed concerns that Belgium lacks the counterterrorism capabilities of other Western European countries grappling with home-grown jihadism.

He said two soldiers who guarded a synagogue in Brussels following the murder of four people in theJewish Museum of Belgium in May 2014 told him that for months, they used to guard the area with no bullets in their rifles. “It was just a show. It’s not normal,” he said.

Belgium’s counterterrorism abilities are limited by a constitutional ban on ethnic profiling and other laws, including a ban on home searches between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Hadad’s rebuke follows reports of omissions in how Belgian authorities handled security issues, including a failure to follow up on warnings by Turkey about one of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s attacks.

Belgium’s interior and justice ministers on Thursday offered to resign.

Belgium’s counterterrorism abilities are limited by a constitutional ban on ethnic profiling and other laws, including a ban on home searches between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Belgian soldiers have been assigned to protect the Jewish institutions, synagogues and schools, since the terrorist shooting at Brussels’ Jewish Museum.

Since then, their presence has been beefed up at periods of elevated risk — including after Tuesday’s attacks at the airport and subway that left at least 31 dead and 300 wounded in the capital of Belgium and seat of the EU institutions.