Counterterorism

Why Belgium is Europe's front line in the war on terror

Brussels: It's a quaint but bustling city, famed for its picture postcard squares, its chocolate and its beer. But it is rapidly becoming infamous, too, asa fertile recruiting ground for jihadi fighters.

For months, Belgian authorities and the public here had lived in fear of attack by home-grown terrorists. As tensions rose, security forces carried out raid after raid in their hunt for Paris attacks fugitive Salah Abdeslam and those who plotted the carnage in the French capital.

Last week they even seemed to catch a lucky break when police, initiating a search for evidence at what turned out to be Abdeslam's safe house, encountered a barrage of gunfire which tipped them off that something -- or someone -- important was inside. Abdeslam, who had abandoned his mission, along with his suicide belt, in Paris in November, escaped again -- only to be cornered in a daring daytime raid a few days later.