the sitch

Been in Brussels doing an internship covering security and terrorism for about three months now. Apart from finally getting into a career I find fascinating, I'm also learning the ins and outs of politics in the capital of Europe.

Brussels is an odd, though comfortable little city. There is lap dog poo everywhere, mixed in with the Euro elite, working class Belgians and various immigrants struggling to find their place.

As elsewhere in Europe it is becoming ever more apparent that extremist Muslim sympathizers, if not themselves violent, are facilitating jihad elsewhere. This is underlined by the December arrest of the infamous Malika el-Aroud and other members of a terrorist cell in my municipal commune. CNN also recently aired a typically self-congratulatory documentary on her in March this year. Despite visiting a friend in the banlieus of Paris during the 2005 riots, I find the frustration among Muslims living in Brussels more palpable. I am well aware of extemists in mostly South Asian communities in London and elsewhere in Britain, but for some reason I rarely felt their presence, which is not the case in Brussels. Perhaps in part because this city is smaller, and already filled with expats of various stripes, which makes it a much less Belgian, than broadly European, city. Or something.

However my focus is not on domestic stability in Western European cities, though the subject is certainly affecting the movement and financing of jihadists elsewhere.