Brussels attack: President Erdogan says bomber was caught in Turkey last year and deported to the Netherlands
Turkey warned Belgium and the Netherlands he was a militant, the president said
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One of the Brussels attackers was caught in Turkey in June last year and deported to the Netherlands, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
President Erdogan said Turkey warned both Belgium and the Netherlands he was "a foreign fighter".
He did not name the attacker, who he said was detained at Turkey's border with Syria at Gaziantep.
President Erdogan said: "Despite our warnings that this person was a foreign terrorist fighter, Belgium could not establish any links with terrorism."
An official in the Turkish president's office later said the attacker deported from Turkey was Brahim el-Bakraoui.
Earlier reports suggested el-Bakraoui was deported to Belgium, but this was later corrected to the Netherlands.
At least 30 were killed and over 200 injured in a series of bomb attacks targeting Brussels Airport and the Molenbeek Metro station.
Shortly after 8am on Tuesday, two explosions killed at least 11 people at Brussels Airport.
Around an hour later, an explosion at the Maalbeek Metro station killed around 20.
One of the suspects captured on CCTVmoments before the airport attack is still at large.
- More about:
- Brussels attacks
- Turkey
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- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
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COMMENTS
The human right act would have allowed him to prosecute us, right up until the bomb went off. They should have withdrawn his passport and refused him entry into the EU.
President ErdoÄŸan is a serious statesman. Actually, Someone in europe not doing his job well. negligents should resign.
Erdogan got holland and Belgium mixed up. Easily done.
I feel sorry for the ones lost their lives. But this kind of stupid politics brought the terrorism into your country. first invade middle east, kill gaddafi, kill saddam, oust mubarak, bomb people, kill them rape them. when terrorist starts their jihad, let all of ther radical sympathizers in your countries flee to Iraq , syria. Then blame turkey with letting them pass into syria. Why didn't you stop them to fly abroad???because you think that it is profitable business to get rid of this filthy jihadist without spending a penny. you just let them to leave the country and expect them to die there... well it seems they prefer to die in their homelands, they are returning to europe...
Sorry but you cannot solve the problem with a crying Mogherini.
Well, maybe the Turks sought assurances that his 'uman rights wouldn't be violated if he were deported to the EU!!?? They have the sense to get rid of this scum as soon as possible!
On December 7 2015, The EU’s counter-terrorism chief, Gilles de Kerchove, said, “It would be inaccurate to suggest the security services are not working intensively together among themselves”. Events have proved him wrong.
The claim by Erdogan that Turkey warned Belgium and the Netherlands that Brahim el-Bakraoui was a terrorist, has the ring of truth. Turkey twice warned France about Ismael Omar Mostefai, one of the terrorists who opened fire on people at the Bataclan in Paris.
Intelligence sharing between EU countries is abysmal. They have a natural inclination to protect their sources and are concerned that intelligence shared may not be secure and might reveal the origin, be it satellite, phone, internet or human. However after the attacks in paris Europol signed officers to Taskforce Fraternite to support the French and Belgian investigation. Many intelligence leads and suspicious financial transactions resulted.
European intelligence agencies have used what’s known as a 'third party rule’. If an EU country shares intelligence with another, then the recipient of the intelligence has to obtain the permission of the originator of the intelligence to share it with any other EU countries.
The best known crime and intelligence agency in Europe is Europol. In 2014 it launched a project called Focal Point Travelers. It was an initiative to collect, analyze and share information on the recruitment and movements of people suspected of traveling abroad to engage in terrorism, particularly those going to Syria and Iraq to train and fight. This includes young women, who make up around 40 percent of those leaving to join the Islamic State.
But EU governments were reluctant to share their information and Europol only received the details of about 2000 people who had become radicalised jihadists and travelled abroad. This impeded it’s mission to fight terrorism. If governments are reluctant to provide full information to Europol as a central source, it is ineffective.
When the Paris attacks occurred only half the 28 EU member states had provided information to Europol’s main crime database. Therefore in January the EU set up the European Counter Terrorism Centre to operate within Europol.
https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/ectc
The stated aim, ”is for the European Counter Terrorism Centre to become a central information hub in the fight against terrorism in the EU, providing analysis for ongoing investigations and contributing to a coordinated reaction in the event of major terrorist attacks”. Although Europol has no powers of arrest.
Intelligence leads on terrorists, particularly home grown, often come from the police. Networks of radicalised terrorists are often intricately connected to drug trafficking and other gang related criminal activity.
Ibrahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up in Paris on November 13, owned a café in Brussels that was known to the police for selling drugs. It was closed down nine days before the attacks.
But the French police were unaware that Abdeslam had failed in an attempt to travel to Syria. It was only after the Paris attacks that Europol sent the French authorities multiple intelligence leads on Ibrahim and his brother Salah, linking them to firearms, drug trafficking, people smuggling and other crime.
Europol needs to provide an effective front-line service within Europe to coordinate police agencies and security services with a way of freely exchanging EU wide intelligence in the fight against terrorism and its associated organised crime. Whether Europol can be an effective FBI type of organisation is up to the EU member states. The question is though, who can be trusted with secret information?
I only feel sorry for the dead and the injured. Responsibility for this lies with Belgium's naïve rulers for letting PKK use their country like a headquarters. ISIS took advantage of this and use it for their own purpose. Turks always told Europeans, if you show tolerance for PKK it will come back to bite you. What idiots.
Given the Turkish authorities warned the Belgianauthorities of one of the terrorist and other authorities have givenprecise details of the attack in advance, are we in the midst of an Operation Gladio B.
Wow Turkey actually stopped a terrorist and then the European authorities let them slip through the net... Very good Mr Ergodan... Out of interest thought, how many Turks have been killed on your watch in the last 12 months as a result of terrorism innyour country? People in glass houses and all that...
In PKK guise, Daesh terrorists sneak into Europe.Daesh exploits European countries' lax attitude towards the PKK, though officially it is a terrorist group....
Exploiting European security gaps, Daesh has been sending their terrorists to European countries in the guise of PKK terrorist organization members, Turkish security sources told Anadolu Agency.
An unnamed police source – who spoke on condition of anonymity – said that many Daesh terrorists were found after they first infiltrated the terrorist PKK and then traveled easily to several European countries under this PKK guise.
Those Daesh members, poised to commit bloody terrorist attacks in Europe, were trained in PKK/PYD encampments in Syria and Iraq, the source claimed.
Members of the PKK – also listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU – have been welcomed in Europe and found it easy to gather financial support.
The Belgian government last week allowed PKK supporters to pitch their tents near the venue of the Turkey-EU summit in Brussels.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called the display of PKK flags and terrorist posters unacceptable, adding that the issue is not about freedom of expression but is a matter of terrorism.
Belgium’s Ambassador to Turkey Marc Trentesau on Sunday was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to convey the country’s protest over the incident.
The security source who spoke to Anadolu Agency stressed that Daesh cells want to exploit European countries’ lax attitude towards the PKK even though they officially consider it a terrorist organization.
The source also claimed that Daesh members use alcohol, have extramarital affairs, and eat pork products – all forbidden in Islam – in Europe to avoid detection.
Last September Turkish police arrested suspected members of the terrorist organization who were carrying both Daesh and PKK IDs in Izmir, in the Aegean region.
Daesh has claimed responsibility for last November’s Paris attacks that left 137 people dead, and the Brussels bombings that killed at least 31 people on Tuesday.
In the wake of the attacks many European countries have put their terror alert on high, and there have been police raids on suspected terrorists in Belgium and France.
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