IMAN Chairman laments Brussels attack, urges action

Image Credit: Martin Meissner / AP

BBC

'Brussels attacks: Zavantem and Maelbeek bombs kill many'

More than 30 people are believed to have been killed and dozens injured in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station.

Twin blasts hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, with 11 people reported killed.

Another explosion struck Maelbeek metro station near EU headquarters an hour later, leaving about 20 people dead.

Brussels police have issued a wanted notice for a man seen pushing a luggage trolley through the airport.

He was pictured in CCTV footage with two other suspects who are believed to have died in the blasts.

The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks in a statement issued on the IS-linked Amaq agency.

Belgium has raised its terrorism alert to its highest level. Three days of national mourning have been declared.

Commenting on the attacks, IMAN Chairman Ribal Al-Assad said:

“I am deeply saddened by the news of these bombings and I am truly sorry for their victims. Yet more innocent lives have been taken and the hearts of their loved ones broken by those seeking to spread hatred and division.

"However, I am neither shocked nor surprised that extremists have struck at the heart of the European Union.

“I have been warning for many years that the threat of Islamic extremism was on Europe’s doorstep. I have said time and again that if action is not taken, the danger will grow larger by the day. We now have hundreds, if not thousands, of battle-hardened jihadists living and travelling freely in Europe.

“Unfortunately, our politicians do not seem to have been listening to these warnings. Now that terrorism is affecting their daily working lives, perhaps things will begin to change.

“The causes of radicalisation are many and complex, of course, and they all need to be addressed if we are to defeat the scourge of terrorism. We must address poverty and alienation and get better control of our borders. We should not relax them further, as the current EU migration deal with Turkey looks likely to do.

“But the most important thing to remember here is this: anybody who will happily strap ball-bearings and explosives to their bodies with the aim of tearing innocent men, women and children to pieces is in the grip of a poisonous and utterly perverted ideology.

“It is this ideology that justifies and incites barbaric attacks such as the ones we have just seen in Brussels. We must drastically increase our efforts to tackle this ideological perversion at its roots. All those who incite hatred and violence must be brought to justice, wherever they are. Their websites and TV stations must be shut down, and their sources of funding blocked. And we must target not just terrorist brand names like Islamic State, but all those who share the same twisted ideology of murder and oppression.

"This means that we must hold governments and individuals in countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar to account for allowing this poison to spread over the airwaves and on the internet.

"If we do not urgently address these issues, no amount of community outreach will ever succeed in stamping out the scourge of extremism.

”At this very sad time my prayers go out to the victims and their families."