The Amaq News Agency, a propaganda arm of the Islamic State (or ISIS), has claimed responsibilityfor today's attacks in Brussels. The claim is hardly surprising: The Islamic State has had Belgium in its crosshairs since at least 2014.
Belgian and European authorities knew this day was coming and they couldn't stop it. Beyond the loss of life, that is the most troubling aspect of today's bombings.
Europe's counterterrorism defenses have cracked because there are simply too many threats to track. An unnamed Belgian counterterrorism official made a similar point during a recent interview with BuzzFeed News. Citing this official, BuzzFeed reported that "virtually every police detective and military intelligence officer in [Belgium] was focused on international jihadi investigations."
"We just don't have the people to watch anything else and, frankly, we don't have the infrastructure to properly investigate or monitor hundreds of individuals suspected of terror links, as well as pursue the hundreds of open files and investigations we have," this same official told BuzzFeed.
As a result, we have reached a point where known terrorists are slipping through the West's defenses. And jihadist networks targeted by counterterrorism officials are still able to carry out attacks even though, in many cases, their members are being hunted.
Consider the story of Abdelhamid Abaaoud. French counterterrorism officials quickly identified Abaaoud as the key ringleader of the November 2015 massacres in Paris. Several members of the Islamic State assaulted locations throughout the city, killing 130 people and wounding dozens more.
Abaaoud was a known threat in both France and Belgium. French authorities suspect he was involved in two previous plots: including an attack on a Paris-bound train and another plot against a church in the suburbs of Paris. In January 2015, Belgian officials killed two members of Abaaoud's cell during a raid on their safe house in Verviers.
Abaaoud didn't keep a low profile, despite the fact that European officials knew who he was. Just weeks after the raid in Verviers, in February 2015, the Islamic State's Dabiq magazine published an interview with Abaaoud. Dabiq described Abaaoud as "a mujahid being pursued by Western Intelligence agencies for his jihad in Belgium."
Abaaoud admitted in his interview that, along with two accomplices, he had traveled to Europe "in order to terrorize the crusaders waging war against the Muslims." He taunted European officials for being unable to stop him during his trips into the heart of Europe.