Secret Report Shows Just How Badly Belgium Mishandled Hunt for ISIS Operatives

BRUSSELS—Belgian police had numerous chances to unmask the Islamic State terror cell that later carried out the Paris and Brussels attacks, according to a confidential report prepared for Belgium’s Parliament. They muffed every one.

In early 2015, Brussels police stopped a car driven by Brahim Abdeslam, later one of the Paris attackers, and arrested him for drug possession. At the time, Brahim was on a terror watch list. He carried a booklet about “parental consent for the Jihad.” Police found a USB thumb drive hidden behind his car radio.

He was let go after brief questioning. Authorities failed to analyze the thumb drive or other electronics seized after the drug stop from an apartment Brahim shared with his younger brother, also involved in the attacks, Salah Abdeslam. Another unnoticed detail: The email address the suspect supplied, s_orry@hotmail.com, was a fake.

The incident, details of which haven’t been previously reported, is outlined in the parliamentary report prepared by Comité P, a watchdog agency of former police and judicial officials auditing the work of Belgian police in the wake of the twin attacks. The 82-page report, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, was finalized in September and hasn’t been made public.

European police have foiled many would-be terrorists in recent years. In many of the major attacks that did occur, the terrorists’ radical leanings were well known to police, who failed to halt them in time.

German authorities have faced similar criticism for failing to neutralize the suspect in December’s Berlin truck attack. The Tunisian immigrant, killed in a shootout in Milan days after the attack, was known to have radical ties and had been ordered to be deported. On Thursday, Germany said top federal and regional security officials met seven times to discuss the potential danger posed by the immigrant before the attack but failed to stop him.

The Belgian report reveals that police had information before the Paris and Brussels attacks that showed the Abdeslam brothers had relationships with other terror suspects; that Brahim wasn’t questioned after multiple interactions with law enforcement even though he was on a terror watch list; and that police didn’t follow up when Salah changed his social-media profile picture to the ISIS flag.

The Comité P report, along with other official documents and interviews with Belgian officials, reveals the extent to which Belgian authorities bungled the investigation of the ISIS cell by ignoring informant tips, failing to heed alerts from other countries and poorly coordinating between law-enforcement branches.
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