Maalbeek/Maelbeek station, 2012. Wikicommons/ stalebg. Some rights reserved.With the recent capture of Salah Abdeslam, thought to be the only surviving member of the terror commandos of the Paris massacre, the western media has again focused on the threat of terrorist attack in western capitals by so-called Islamic State, ISIS.
This morning’s tragic events in Brussels airport and metro shocked the world and created a heightened sense of insecurity, in a similar way to the effects of last year’s Charlie Hebdo terror attack in January and later Paris attacks in November by ISIS. But then, after Paris attacks, the focus of media shifted hastily elsewhere and ISIS became yesterday’s story, as if the terrorist movement had ceased to exist or disappeared into far lands not able to affect our lives any more.
In reality, ISIS has never stopped killing people brutally in large numbers since the slaughter in Paris in November last year. It has kept murdering innocent civilians in large numbers, but not in Europe. Just last month in late February, two ISIS suicide bombers blew themselves up in an outdoor mobile phone market in Sadr City, Iraq, killing 73 people and injuring more than 100. On the same day, hundreds of ISIS fighters coordinated a massive attack in Abu Ghraib, on the western outskirts of Baghdad. This was just one day’s news in Iraq. Almost every day in Iraq, Libya and Syria there are terrorist attacks, suicide bombs, and tens, if not hundreds, of civilians murdered, around-the-clock. Almost certainly many more are being murdered right now, as we’re watching the news from Brussels airport in fear.
