The Jewish Home | MARCH 22, 2016
The Week In News
Paris Attacker Finally Arrested
It was four months on the run, but finally on Friday Europe’s number one fugitive was captured. Salah Abdeslam was found holed up in an apartment in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek. The terrorist who was instrumental in the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people was actually hiding only a few hundred feet from his parents’ home. Four other people were arrested in the raid. On Saturday, Belgian authorities charged Abdeslam and an alleged accomplice with “participation in terrorist murder.” A third person detained Friday was charged with being in a terrorist group and hiding criminals, while two others who had been detained were released. The Belgian government admitted it realizes that support for Abdeslam may have been more widespread than initially thought. “I always said that at the beginning we thought it was several individuals. Today we have to recognize that the number of people who support him is higher,” said Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon. “That doesn’t mean that the entire community supports him. But the support is a lot higher than I had estimated at the beginning.” The 26-year-old is said to have been the logistics man for the gang of Islamic terrorists who went on a rampage in Paris last November, killing 130 people. Abdeslam is thought to have rented rooms, shopped for detonators and driven at least one of the killers from Brussels to Paris. His lawyer, Sven Mary, told the Associated Press that Abdeslam “doesn’t deny he was in Paris.” In Paris, prosecutor Francois
Molins said that, during an interrogation session on Saturday, Abdeslam told Belgian officials that he had “wanted to blow himself up at the Stade de France” on November 13 but that he backed out at the last minute. Immediately after the attacks, Abdeslam was actually stopped by French police at a checkpoint and then let through. Authorities have been searching for him since then. But hiding out in Molenbeek seems to have been the answer. The neighborhood’s densely populated warren of narrow, cobbled streets and crumbling apartment blocks, mainly filled with people with a Moroccan background, was an ideal area for him to find shelter. “Probably he had contacts with other men to help him,” Molenbeek Mayor Francoise Schepmans said. “But we have to wait. What’s important now is that Salah Abdeslam has been arrested.” Abdeslam is expected to be extradited to France after questioning in Belgium. Meanwhile, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel warned that “the fight is not over” and his government announced the nation’s terrorism alert level would remain unchanged at 3 on a 4-point scale.
Internet More Important Than Daylight?
The results of this latest poll will not be shocking to teens. When British young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 were asked to name five things that they felt were important to maintain their quality of life, here is what they had to say. Freedom of speech topped the list, picked by 81% of the 2,465 surveyed. Nearly seven in 10 (69%) chose an internet connection, followed by 64% saying daylight and 57% hot water. Only 37% said a na-
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