The death toll has risen to 34 in the March 22, 2016, attacks on the Brussels airport and a subway station, officials said. See newsday.com's stories, photos and videos on the attacks at the Maelbeek metro station, in the heart of the European Union's capital, and at the airport.

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Anthony M. DeStefano

NYPD Commissioner William Bratton on Wednesday said Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s support for widespread surveillance of Muslims in the United States shows he won’t be elected president.
Reiterating comments he made Tuesday, Bratton, speaking at a special graduation ceremony for bomb-sniffing dogs, said it was foolhardy for Cruz to paint all Muslims as potential terrorists and again pointed out that the NYPD has nearly 1,000 Muslim officers, many of them veterans.
“For him or any presidential candidate to disparage the men and woman who are working to secure this country and this city — shame on them,” Bratton said. “So Mr. Cruz, as I said it yesterday [Tuesday], [this] is a good indication of why he will not become president of the United States.”
As he spoke to reporters, Bratton was flanked by two Labrador retrievers and their handlers, part of a group of eight canines graduating as part of the counterterrorism dog-training program. The animals are called “vapor weight” dogs because they are trained to detect explosives, particularly on people carrying bombs through a crowd as happened in the Brussels attacks.
Sitting on all four paws next to Bratton were Paulie, named after the late Officer Paul Ferrara, and Abe, named after the late officer Abraham Walton. All eight dogs were named after NYPD officers who were killed in the line of duty or died as a result of Sept. 11, 2001. 
Referencing the attacks in Brussels, Bratton said the dogs, which were paid for with $500,000 in federal security funding, were “our front lines of defenses in the war on terrorism.”
Bratton said that while some experts have suggested setting up separate baggage-checking facilities at airports, it was a solution that wouldn’t be able to do away with long lines of passengers.
“The issue of lines at airports is a fact of life and dogs is how you deal with it,” Bratton said.
During an early morning appearance on CBS television Wednesday, Bratton said an attack like the ones in Brussels could happen in New York and other American cities.
“It can happen anywhere in the world,” Bratton said. “But the benefit here is we put a lot of resources into the intelligence community.”
Ramped-up security was evident Wednesday around the city, particular in subway and rail stations. In Nassau, acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said there are no credible threats against Long Island, but in light of Tuesday’s terrorist attacks and as the Easter holiday approaches, the police department is stepping up patrols in areas that might be targeted, including transit centers, religious institutions and major shopping centers.
“All our resources have been deployed to improve our ability to provide for the safety of the residents of Nassau County,” Krumpter said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon at Nassau government headquarters in Mineola. “The price tag is realigning the resources that we currently have to focus on these soft targets. We will minimize the costs to the maximum extent. But first and foremost will be the safety of the residents and we will not compromise that based on the price of any overtime.”

New York

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Brussels attacks prompt more security in NYC, on LI 

NYPD: Brussels-type attack possible ‘anywhere’

Long Island

Nassau

Nassau County steps up security after Brussels attacks

Newsday

Terror attacks struck Brussels Tuesday morning, with explosions at the city’s airport and inside its transit system, killing at least 30. 
Hours later, at a news conference at 1 Police Plaza in Manhattan, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that law enforcement authorities were aware of “no specific and credible threat against New York City at this time.” 
He noted heightened security that the NYPD and law enforcement partners had put in place around the city: heavy-weapons teams from the NYPD’s new counterterror squads, subway bag checks, and enhanced presence in the subway system, for example. 
Police Commissioner William Bratton gave an eyewitness example of that coverage, describing his subway ride from Grand Central Terminal, where he passed National Guard and MTA officers, as well as NYPD Critical Response Command personnel and transit canine units. 
On the train, there were four Strategic Response Group officers equipped with long guns. He “felt very secure,” he said. And New Yorkers should, too, by implication, protected by the many levels of anti-terror units and precautions enacted by the NYPD and its partners, sharpened by analysis of previous attacks abroad. 
But the mayor and law enforcement officials said prevention was most important of all. De Blasio spoke of the terror plots “thwarted” by the NYPD since 9/11. 
NYPD Intelligence and counterterrorism head John Miller later spoke of the importance of intelligence and prevention, quoting Sun Tzu as saying, “He who protects everything protects nothing.” 
In that regard, NYPD officials continued their press for full funding from the federal government for anti-terror activities and equipment, and more dire warnings of the dangers of encryption. 
As city officials respond to the difficulty of protecting soft targets, New Yorkers are again reminded that problems in faraway places are problems close to home. 
This post was first featured in <a href="http://newsday.com/thepoint">The Point</a>, the editorial board's daily newsletter going inside New York politics. <a href="http://www.newsday.com/opinion/sign-up-for-the-point-1.10067662">Subscribe now</a>.

Opinion

New York responds to Brussels attacks

Opinion: Attacks in Brussels revive fears for NYers

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Islamic extremists struck Tuesday in the heart of Europe, killing at least 34 people and wounding scores of others in back-to-back bombings of the Brussels airport and subway that again laid bare the continent's vulnerability to suicide squads. 
Bloodied and dazed travelers staggered from the airport after two explosions — at least one blamed on a suicide attacker and another apparently on a suitcase bomb — tore through crowds checking in for morning flights. About 40 minutes later, another rush-hour blast ripped through a subway car in central Brussels as it left the Maelbeek station, in the heart of the European Union's capital city. 
Authorities released a photo taken from closed-circuit TV footage of three men pushing luggage carts in the airport, saying two of them apparently were suicide bombers and that the third — dressed in a light-colored coat, black hat and glasses — was at large. They urged the public to reach out to police if they recognized him. The two men believed to be the suicide attackers apparently were wearing dark gloves on their left hands, possibly to hide detonators. 
In police raids Tuesday across Belgium, authorities later found a nail-filled bomb, chemical products and an Islamic State flag in a house in the Schaerbeek neighborhood, the state prosecutors' office said in a statement. 
In its claim of responsibility, the Islamic State group said its members detonated suicide vests both at the airport and in the subway, where many passengers fled to safety down dark tunnels filled with hazy smoke from the explosion. A small child wailed, and commuters used cell phones to light their way out. 
European security officials have been bracing for a major attack for weeks and warned that IS was actively preparing to strike. The arrest Friday of Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, heightened those fears, as investigators said many more people were involved than originally thought and that some are still on the loose. 
"In this time of tragedy, this black moment for our country, I appeal to everyone to remain calm but also to show solidarity," said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, who announced three days of mourning in his country's deadliest terror strike. 
"Last year it was Paris. Today it is Brussels. It's the same attacks," said French President Francois Hollande. 
Shockwaves from the attacks crossed Europe and the Atlantic, prompting heightened security at airports and other sites. 
Belgium raised its terror alert to the highest level, shut the airport through Wednesday and ordered a city-wide lockdown, deploying about 500 soldiers onto Brussels' largely empty streets to bolster police checkpoints. France and Belgium both reinforced border security. 
Justice ministers and interior ministers from across the 28-nation EU planned an emergency meeting, possibly Thursday morning, to assess the fallout. The subway blast hit beneath buildings that normally host EU meetings and house the union's top leadership. 
Medical officials treating the wounded said some victims lost limbs, while others suffered burns or deep gashes from shattered glass or suspected nails packed in with the explosives. Among the most seriously wounded were several children. 
The bombings came barely four months after suicide attackers based in Brussels' heavily Muslim Molenbeek district slaughtered 130 people at a Paris nightspots, and intelligence agencies had warned for months a follow-up strike was inevitable. Paris fugitive Abdeslam was arrested in Molenbeek. 
A high-level Belgian judicial official said a connection by Abdeslam to Tuesday's attacks is "a lead to pursue." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. 
Abdeslam has told investigators he was planning to "restart something" from Brussels, said Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders. He said Sunday that authorities took the claim seriously because "we found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons in the first investigations and we have seen a new network of people around him in Brussels." 
While Belgian authorities knew that some kind of extremist act was being prepared in Europe, "we never could have imagined something of this scale," Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said. 
Officials at the airport in the Brussels suburb of Zaventem said police had discovered a Kalashnikov assault rifle and an explosives-packed vest abandoned at the facility, offering one potential lead for forensic evidence. Bomb disposal experts safely dismantled that explosive device. 
A U.S. administration official said American intelligence officers were working with their European counterparts to try to identify the apparently skilled bomb-maker or makers involved in the Brussels attacks and to identify any links to the bombs used in Paris. 
The official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the investigations and demanded anonymity, told The Associated Press that at least one of the bombs at the airport was suspected to have been packed into a suitcase left in the departures hall. 
Several Americans were among the wounded, including an Air Force lieutenant colonel stationed in the Netherlands, his wife and four children who were at the airport. Mormon church officials, meanwhile, said three of its missionaries from Utah were seriously injured in the blasts and were hospitalized. 
Three intelligence officials in Iraq told the AP that they had warned European colleagues last month of IS plans to attack airports and trains, although Belgium wasn't specified as a likely target. The officials, who monitor activities in the IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, said Brussels may have become a target because of the arrest of Abdeslam. 
One of the officials — all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about their knowledge of IS operations — said Iraqi intelligence officials believe that three other IS activists remain at large in Brussels and are plotting other suicide-bomb attacks. 
European leaders already struggling to cope with a wave of migration from the war-torn Middle East said they must rely on better anti-terrorist intelligence work to identify an enemy that wears no uniform and seeks the softest of targets. They emphasized that Europe must remain tolerant toward Muslims as they seek to identify those on the violent extremist fringe. 
Leaders of the 28-nation EU said in a joint statement that Tuesday's assault on Brussels "only strengthens our resolve to defend European values and tolerance from the attacks of the intolerant." 
The U.N. lead official for Middle East refugees, Amin Awad, warned that Europe faced an increasing risk of racist retaliation against Muslim immigrant communities. "Any sort of hostilities because of the Brussels attack or Paris attack is misplaced," Awad said. 
Reflecting the trauma of the moment, Belgian officials offered uncertain casualty totals at both the airport and subway. Police conducted controlled explosions on suspicious abandoned packages that ultimately were found to contain no explosives. 
The government said at least 11 people were killed at the airport and 20 on the subway, where the bomb hit an enclosed train car. Later, a security official said the overall death toll had risen to 34, without providing a breakdown of where. 
In the airport, video posted on social media showed people cowering on the ground in the wake of the blasts, the air acrid with smoke, windows of shops and the terminal entrance shattered, and fallen ceiling tiles littering the blood-streaked floor. 
Some witnesses described hearing two distinct blasts, with shouts apparently in Arabic from at least one attacker before the second, bigger explosion. 
Zach Mouzoun, who arrived on a flight from Geneva about 10 minutes before the airport blasts, told France's BFM television that pipes ruptured, sending a cascade of water mixing with victims' blood. 
Marc Noel was about to board a Delta flight to Atlanta. The Belgian native, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, said the first blast happened about 50 yards (meters) from him. "People were crying, shouting, children. ... It was a horrible experience," he said. 
A random decision to pause in a shop to buy a magazine may have saved his life. Otherwise, he said, "I would probably have been in that place when the bomb went off." 
Anthony Deloos, an airport worker for Swissport, which handles check-in and baggage services, said the first blast took place near the Swissport counters where customers pay for overweight bags. He and a colleague said the second blast struck near a Starbucks cafe. 
Deloos said a colleague shouted at him to run as the blast sent clouds of shredded paper billowing through the air, and "I jumped into a luggage chute to be safe." 
Passengers on other trains said many commuters were reading about the airport attacks on their smartphones when they heard the subway blast. Hundreds fled from stopped trains down tunnel tracks to adjacent stations. Many told stories of having missed the bomb by minutes or seconds. 
Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur said more than 100 were wounded in the subway blast. Rescue workers set up makeshift first aid centers in a nearby pub and hotel. 
"It was panic everywhere. There were a lot of people in the metro," said commuter Alexandre Brans, wiping blood from his face. 
Political leaders and others around the world expressed their shock at the attacks. 
"We will do whatever is necessary to support our friend and ally Belgium in bringing to justice those who are responsible," U.S. President Barack Obama said, ordering American flags lowered to half-staff through Saturday. 
Belgium's king and queen said they were "devastated" by the violence, describing the attacks as "odious and cowardly." 
After nightfall, Europe's best-known monuments — the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gate and the Trevi Fountain — were illuminated with Belgium's national colors in a show of solidarity.

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Brussels attacks at airport, subways kill at least 34, police say

Official: Death toll rises to 34 in Brussels attacks 

Brussels

Wow. That didn’t take long.
With news of the Brussels airport attack filtering around the world in the morning, most people didn’t even realize what had happened.
But that didn’t stop Republican presidential candidates from politicizing the whole thing.
From Donald Gasbag: “I would close up our borders to people until we figure out what’s going on. .We are taking people without real documentation. We don’t learn. I will tell you I’ve been talking about this for a long time. This whole thing will get worse as time goes by.”
Ted Cruz, the expert on everything, went on Twitter.
“Radical Islam is at war with us,” he tweeted “For over 7 years we have had a president who refuses to acknowledge this reality.”
All of this, of course, before anybody really had all the details.
In another tweet, Cruz said: “That ends on January 20, 2017, when I am sworn in as president.”
Cruz then called a press conference, saying “This is a war.” He called on the U.S. to use “full force and fury” against ISIS.
I assume Ted means carpet bombing. He loves sending people to war. As long as it’s not him or a family member.
We have dozens dead. We have airports all over the world adding extra security. And now we have the GOP trying to score political points. Quickly.
Class. Real class. Amazing.
Gary Stein is a columnist for the Sun Sentinel. Readers may send him email at gstein@sunsentinel.com

Commentary

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GOP candidates already politicizing Brussels attacks

Opinion: GOP already politicizing Brussels attacks

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The first alert that John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, received about the terror attacks in Belgium came at 3:31 a.m. Tuesday when an aide at an overnight police watch desk roused him with a telephone call.
Over the next two hours, Miller and other high-ranking NYPD officials made quick decisions to ramp up security in the subway system and transportation hubs in time for the looming rush hour that was soon to be tested by millions of daily riders. They also decided to put extra security around Belgian and French interests.
The NYPD effort was part of a regional security response to the deadly bombings on Brussels’ public transport system and major airport. Numerous agencies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority, dramatically increased security. National Guard soldiers were also patrolling.
The Transportation Security Administration said it is deploying more security at major U.S. airports and at key rail and transit stations nationally. 
On Long Island, Nassau County police said they are intensifying patrols in all areas of mass transit and critical infrastructure, and will increase patrols at significant public events. 
In Suffolk County, police said the “public should expect to see additional police presence in and around mass transit facilities.” 
At the Valley Stream Long Island Rail Road station Tuesday morning, a pair of uniformed MTA police officers walked the platform, inspecting it from end to end. New York City Transit police patrolled subway stations with dogs, and heavily armed military personnel were visible throughout Penn Station.
At the LIRR’s customer concourse there, Roey Bender of Manhattan thanked a pair of troops, and said, “I feel New York City is the safest place to be right now.” 
At a Manhattan symposium on the future of transportation hosted by Bloomberg LP, transportation officials assured the public that they were doing their best to protect travelers. John Degnan, chairman of the Port Authority, said the agency was at “highest state of alert.”
Because of the timing of the attack in Europe, the NYPD was able to effectively double the size of the newly formed Critical Response Command and Strategic Response Group by holding over the midnight-to-8 a.m. shifts of those heavily armed units. Police also added bomb-sniffing dogs, increased bag checks at subway stations and activated explosion detection devices.
“What you saw was the sum total of a couple of hours’ work which brought [together] hundreds of people, lots of equipment and special talent,” Miller told reporters at a news conference Tuesday. 
NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, who spends about 40 percent of his time dealing with terrorism, saw much security, including the National Guard and Strategic Response Group officers as he took the subway from Grand Central after a breakfast meeting. “I felt very secure,” Bratton said.
MTA chairman Thomas Prendergast said his agency also coordinates closely with the NYPD, Joint Terrorism Task Force and other intelligence agencies and stepped up the presence of uniformed and “highly armed” police officers.
Both Bratton and Diego Rodriguez, head of the FBI’s New York office, said authorities will be ramping up surveillance on terrorism suspects here.
Mayor Bill De Blasio, whose funding of 2,000 additional cops was credited by Bratton as giving the NYPD the ability to create the special units in action Tuesday, expressed solidarity with Belgium and said New Yorkers wouldn’t submit to fear. 
“We refuse to change who we are,” de Blasio said.
Later Tuesday, de Blasio and Bratton, who reiterated there was no credible threat to the city, traveled to Times Square, where 50 new cops were stationed as part of a previously announced anti-crime initiative.
“It is so important for people go about their normal routines,” de Blasio said outside the Times Square subway station. 
Bratton asked the public to thank his officers. 
“Say hello to those cops, tell them you are grateful, thankful that they are there.” 
With Alfonso A. Castillo

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More security in NYC, on LI after Brussels

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