ANTI-JIHAD prosecutor in Spain's National Court, Dolores Delgado, says there is no connection between the arrest of Paris terror fugitive Salah Abdesalam and the fatal shooting of one of his DAESH colleagues, and the morning's attacks at Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station.
She says the Brussels bombings were not an improvised revenge reaction, but would have been planned to coincide with Easter week when air travel and public transport movements were at their peak.
An attack of this magnitude takes a lot of planning, and could not have been organised in the four days since Abdesalam's arrest, she insists.
And the aim is always to 'cause as much chaos as possible'.
“Saying something has failed in the investigations in Brussels would be unjust,” Sra Delgado says.
She reveals that Belgian authorities had known for some time that an attack of this nature in the country was likely to occur, and several in the planning stages have already been thwarted.
Although Spain has upped its terrorism risk alert level to 4 – the highest being 5 – since the Paris attacks, Sra Delgado says the danger is no higher on Spanish soil than anywhere else in Europe; if anything, it is considerably lower.
Spain has 363 people under close scrutiny by Intelligence services for their direct or indirect connections with DAESH terrorism, and between 133 and 135 Jihad recruits trained in combat – some of whom have returned from Syria, some in prison, but very few still walking the streets – but France and Belgium are aware of between 1,300 and 1,400 people who have left for Syria.
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