The Islamic State group has trained from 400 to 600 Islamic State fighters trained specifically for attacks outside the Middle East, European officials have told The Associated Press. Deployed in interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris, they are ready to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum chaos.
The officials reported about ISIS training camps set up in Syria, Iraq and the former Soviet republics. The leader of the November Paris told Police he had entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered across the continent. But knowing about the massive influx and tracking and stopping it are two different things. Police had captured terror mastermind Salah Abdeslam four days before the Brussels attacks this week, and still failed to stop them. In fact, experts today believe ISIS decided to run the attacks ahead of schedule as a result of the ringleader’s arrest, before Abdeslam spilled the beans about the murderous plot.
Investigators were taken aback, according to the NY Times, by the fact that Belgian police discovered more than 30 pounds of the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) in the terrorists’ apartments in Brussels. Apparently, this figure points more than any other intelligence data to the enormous contingency of trained ISIS terrorists in Europe and to the level and sophistication of their organization. TATP is very unstable and sensitive to shock, friction and heat. It also breaks down quickly in air. It is more dangerous and physically exhausting to create than the fertilizer-based explosive ammonium nitrate. Making TATP requires meticulous, time-consuming work, adding the catalyst, drop by drop, to a mixture that must be stirred and kept cool with a lot of ice.
Which is why, unlike ammonium nitrate, TATP is typically used in small quantities. The fact that the Brussels cells were able to manufacture these 30 pounds, in addition to the explosives that were put to use on Tuesday, is understandably alarming.
One expert told the NY Times the quantity of TATP the terrorists had on hand suggested their organization has increased and improved since the Paris attacks.
The Islamic State, claiming responsibility for Tuesday’s attack, spoke of a “secret cell of soldiers” sent to carry out the Brussels attack. Europol confirmed the claim in January, with an intelligence report that ISIS had “developed an external action command trained for special forces-style attacks.”
It appears that ISIS tapped into the Muslim underworld in Europe to set up the Brussels cell, rather than into the traditional Muslim extremists. Two of the Brussels suicide bombers, Belgian-born brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, were common criminals. An Algerian who was killed in their apartment on March 15 was a petty thief in Sweden. But, unbeknownst to Police, they had all joined ISIS in 2014. In fact, Ibrahim El Bakraoui was caught last June by the Turks near the Syrian border and deported to the Netherlands, with a warning to Dutch and Belgian Police that he was a “foreign terrorist fighter.” But the Dutch let him go, unable to prove his connection to extremism.
In the future, a warning from the Turks or from other friendly police forces in the region (nudge nudge, wink wink) should suffice to keep those Arab infiltrators behind bars.