Here is what is going on across the English Channel. The Washington Post reports from Belgium that the town of Maaseik has become a hub of terror:

The phones at City Hall began ringing nonstop one morning last year when several masked figures were spotted walking through the cobbled streets of this pastoral town. A small panic erupted when one of the figures, covered head to ankle in black fabric, appeared at a school and scared children to tears. It turned out the people were not hooded criminals, but six female residents of Maaseik who were displaying their Muslim piety by wearing burqas , garments that veiled their faces, including their eyes. After calm was restored, a displeased Mayor Jan Creemers summoned the women to his office. "I said, 'Ladies, you can be dressed all in Armani black for all I care, but please do not cover your faces,' " Creemers recalled. "I tried to talk to them about it, but it was impossible. They said, 'We are the only true believers of the Koran.'"

What the city elders did not know at the time was that the women came from households in which several men had embraced radical Islam and joined a terrorist network that was setting up sleeper cells across Europe, according to Belgian federal prosecutors and court documents from Italy, Spain and France. Over the next nine months, Belgian federal police arrested five men in Maaseik, a town of 24,000 people tucked in the northeast corner of Belgium. Each was charged with membership in a terrorist organization, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a fast-growing network known by its French initials, GICM.

With each arrest, investigators uncovered fresh evidence that placed small-town Maaseik at the center of a terrorist network stretching across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The town had served as a haven for suspects in the Madrid train explosions that killed 191 people in March 2004, for instance, as well as an important meeting place for the GICM's European leadership.

Meanwhile, Anthony Browne reported in the Times a few days ago how the Netherlands – that open, tolerant, multicultural country – has descended into an utterly horrifying state of mass intimidation and murderous terror directed against anyone who stands up against Islamic facism:

A film about gay rights should hardly raise an eyebrow in the Netherlands, which for centuries has prided itself as a beacon of freedom of expression and was the first country to legalise gay marriage. But when Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee turned Dutch MP, starts making a new film about the oppression of homosexuals under Islam, the threat to everyone taking part is deemed so great that there will be no faces shown on screen, no end credits, and the entire production team will remain anonymous.

Ms Ali, a 'lapsed Muslim' who revealed this week that she has finished the script, lives in a safe house under 24-hour protection. The precaution is as wise as the courage is extraordinary: Theo van Gogh, the director of Ms Ali’s previous film, about domestic violence under Islam, was killed — repeatedly shot and nearly decapitated in broad daylight in the streets of Amsterdam by an Islamic extremist. Impaled on a knife in Mr van Gogh’s chest was a five-page note declaring holy war on the Netherlands and threatening death to many other public figures deemed 'enemies of Islam'.

A year after his murder, the Netherlands is a country transformed. Previously, only the Queen and the Prime Minister had police protection, and ministers cycled to their ministries. Now, many politicians, writers and artists are considered to be in such danger that they have permanent armed guards and are driven around in bomb-proof armoured cars. The Interior Ministry has set up a special unit assessing death threats from Islamic extremists and providing protection squads.

Truly, these are dark days for Europe.

Posted by melanie at November 24, 2005