Belgium steps up security amid new terror threats

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• HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR:

  For the latest about stepped-up security in Belgium, we are joined now via Skype from Brussels by Matthew Dalton. He is a reporter with "The Wall Street Journal".

  So, Matthew, it's been decades since we saw military on the streets of Belgium, where are these troops and why?

• MATTHEW DALTON, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

  Well, they are positioned throughout the city in certain strategic places, around government buildings, ministries, and the reason is because of this plot that was disrupted on Thursday evening.

  The plotters wanted to kill policemen. That was the purpose of their plot. They had police uniforms. They had explosives. They had Kalashnikovs.

  It was more than 13 people involved in the plot. It was a fairly sophisticated, ambitious effort to try to kill people, kill policemen on the street, and in police stations. So, they're not — they believe that they've rounded up the plot — they've rounded up all the plotters but this is more was a fairly sophisticated, ambitious effort to try to kill people, kill policemen on the street, and in police stations. So, they're not — they believe that they've rounded up the plot– they've rounded up all the plotters, but this is more of a precautionary effort to make sure that if they've missed anybody, that they have enough firepower in place to fight them.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  How is it affecting the mood on the street to see this military presence, to hear about these raids happening? What are people thinking about, talk, about?

• MATTHEW DALTON:

  Well, I think they're pretty shocked. Belgium has a large Moroccan minority, a large Muslim minority. Brussels itself is probably about 25 percent Muslim. But the Belgians have lived with this minority in peace for a long time, and there haven't been major problems until recently, until the events in the Middle East have really inflamed sentiment among parts of — a minority of the Muslim population.

  But nevertheless, you're still talking about, you know, a few hundred people, maybe more than that. So I think people, generally speaking, are worried about the idea of a multi-cultural state in Belgium. That's what a lot of people are talking about. The security presence itself is not pervasive, I would say.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  OK. Belgium officials have also said that about 350 people have gone from there to fight in wars in Iraq and Syria and about 100 of them have come back. That's an enormous number. That's the highest per-capita population in Europe.

• MATTHEW DALTON:

  That's right. There was a group — starting in 2010, there was a group called Sharia for Belgium, that was formed in response to Belgian efforts to ban the niqab, which is the face veil that Muslim women wear.

  Then, starting in about 2011, this group, of Muslim fundamentalists you could call them, started plotting to send their members to Syria. And so, there are more than 50 people associated with this group who have been sent to Syria to fight. And then, there are other — that was kind of the beginning, the first wave of people that left from Belgium.

  But the recruitment happened via these people and via others through social media, largely Facebook, Twitter, has drawn friends, sometimes family members, wives, children, to follow a lot of these people.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  All right. Matthew Dalton, reporter for "The Wall Street Journal", joining us live on Skype today from Brussels — thanks so much.

• MATTHEW DALTON:

  Thank you.