Top Belgian Official Reveals That After Brussels Attacks There Were Street Celebrations in Belgium

Top Belgian Official Reveals That After Brussels Attacks There Were Street Celebrations in Belgium
Belgium's Interior Minister Jan Jambon pauses before speaking during a media conference in Brussels on Tuesday, March 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Epoch Newsroom
4/1/2016
Updated:
4/3/2016

A top Belgian official revealed this week that celebrations broke out on the streets of multiple cities in the country following the terror attacks in Brussels.

The attacks by ISIS members left 35 dead and hundreds wounded.

Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said during a speech at a conference organized by the Dutch pro-Israel group CIDI that the celebrations took place in multiple cities, reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jambon noted that Belgium has a big jihadism problem, with 451 citizens flagged as jihadists in February alone.

Broken glass and blood is seen outside an entrance to Maelbeek metro station following todays attack on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
Broken glass and blood is seen outside an entrance to Maelbeek metro station following todays attack on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

But he said that racial profiling is ineffective since the jihadists come from all sorts of backgrounds, “including doctors, lawyers, and common criminals.” Only one in six jihadists come from a poor home in Belgium, he said. 

Jambon’s comments came after the leader of the government of the Flemish region in Belgium complained that media outlets in the country ignored Muslims rioting after the arrest of Paris terror suspect Salah Abdeslam earlier in March.

“It is, to me, highly shocking that after Abdelslam’s arrest, 200 young people of foreign origins hurled spontaneously bottles and stones on our police,” Geer Bourgeois told VRT. “It is regrettable that we saw nothing of these images on national television news.”

The broadcaster later said it didn’t report on the riots due to technical reasons.