MANY people were killed or seriously injured in terrorist attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station on Tuesday morning.
Two explosions hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, and another struck Maelbeek metro station an hour later. Brussels transport officials say 15 died at Maelbeek and the Belgian media say up to 13 died at the airport. Belgium has now raised its terror threat to its highest level. The entire city is in lockdown. People are calm at the moment but the atmosphere is very tense.
The attacks come four days after Salah Abdeslam, the main fugitive in the Paris attacks, was seized in Brussels.Prime Minister Charles Michel called the Brussels attacks ‘blind, violent and cowardly’, saying they were a ‘tragic moment in our country’s history. I would like to call on everyone to show calmness and solidarity.’ European Union president Donald Tusk said: ‘These attacks mark another low by the terrorists in the service of hatred and violence.’
On Tuesday morning UK PM David Cameron chaired a meeting of the Cobra response committee to step up UK security measures. President Francois Hollande has held a cabinet meeting to discuss the Belgian explosions. There is also extra security at Dutch airports.
The explosions were very close to EU institutions. The European Commission – the EU dictatorship’s executive arm – has told employees to stay indoors or at home. All meetings at EU institutions have been cancelled. News Line condemns these reactionary attacks on entirely innocent people. However, the causes of the rise of terrorism are more than well known.
These are: the imperialist attacks on Afghanistan since 2001; the war to destroy Iraq, launched in 2003 based on lies that Iraq had and was prepared to use weapons of mass destruction; the obliteration of Libya as an advanced country by Islamists, supported by Anglo-French imperialist war planes and special forces, culminating in the murder of Colonel Gadaffi; and the five year US-UK backed attempt to destroy Syria, that has turned half of the Syrian population into refugees.
The attack on Iraq was preceded by over 10 years of deadly sanctions that succeeded in killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children – before imperialism went in for the kill in 2003. At the same time, tens of thousands of Kurds have been killed by Turkish imperialism, while thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s attacks on the West Bank and Gaza in Palestine.
Saddam Hussein in fact warned imperialism that if it destroyed him, his army and his government, then the gates of hell would open. His warnings were ignored! The emergence of ISIS, and related movements seeking revenge and recruiting young people from all over the world to be either suicide bombers or fighters in an attempt to turn history backwards towards a 10th century Caliphate, is the reward that the imperialist powers have reaped for the slaughters that they have conducted.
The EU, with the UK and France knee-deep in the murder of Muslims from Libya eastwards, is now seeking to form a ‘Fortress Europe’ by handing over to Turkey (already a terrorist state that is murdering large numbers of Kurds) along with 3bn euros, all of the refugees that are seeking to cross the Mediterranean to supposed safety in the EU.
An armed fleet is being formed to escort refugee boats back to the Libyan and other coasts where refugees will be disembarked and their boats sunk. As well, a military intervention is being prepared for Libya. Such policies will only create thousands more terrorists.
In fact, there is only one way that the huge crisis of imperialism can be resolved and terrorism, one of the products of this crisis, be liquidated. This is for the working class of the world to overthrow the imperialist governments and imperialist powers with socialist revolutions.
These will get rid of out-of-date capitalism, rip up its out-of-date frontiers, and consign its national questions to the history books by creating a world socialist republic where the productive forces are used to put an end to hunger and disease and to satisfy all human needs. This is the only way forward.
