This article was automatically translated from HIBAPRESS, the Arabic version:
This article was automatically translated from HIBAPRESS, the Arabic version:
Brussels: Ezzedine Lamrini
During the night from Friday to Saturday, more than 500 members of the Belgian security forces and emergency services took part in a simulated terrorist attack against Brussels central station.
This exercise aims to test the effectiveness of intervention and cooperation procedures between different emergency and security agencies, as part of a simulated terrorist attack, with the aim of preparing teams to react quickly and effectively in such cases.
The operation included the deployment of hundreds of exercise participants, including police officers, firefighters, doctors, military personnel and, for the first time, security reserve volunteers, to diagnose a closer crisis situation of reality, as this year’s scenario simulated. an armed attack carried out by three individuals.
Last March, the Belgian organization “OCAM” responsible for analyzing the terrorist threat announced that it had monitored more than 650 people considered “extremists” or “terrorists”, who are the subject of priority monitoring and have been included in a database that all security forces can access.
88 percent of these people are subject to surveillance because of their “attachment to extremist ideology,” 9 percent for their ties to right-wing extremism, and 2 percent for their ties to left-wing extremism. Others represent “various threats” anti-elite or linked to conflicts abroad.
It is worth noting that in 2016, Belgium witnessed suicide attacks claimed by ISIS, which resulted in the deaths of 35 people.
