Former ISIS hostage says Brussels attacks prove 'the enemy looks ordinary and walks among you'

A French journalist held hostage by the Islamic State believes the image being circulated of the Belgium terror attack suspects is exactly what ISIS wants people to see.

The photo shows one unidentified suspect and two others believed to have blown themselves up just moments later. They look like any other passengers, Nicolas Hénin wrote in a Guardian op-ed, and "the jihadis, who held me hostage in Syria for 10 long months, will draw just as much satisfaction from the banal images of its three operatives in the moments before they launched yesterday's murderous attack on Zaventem airport." Hénin said it's "chilling" to look at the surveillance photo and know that the men "are intending to kill and maim" countless people, and themselves. "They are not stressed or anxious," he wrote, because they are "all about death," and the photo sends a clear message that the enemy "looks ordinary and walks among you."

Now that terrorist attacks are "migrating" from country to country in Europe, everyone is worried about who will be next, Hénin said. There is one sign of hope, however, and that's the fact that Salah Abdeslam, the Paris attacker captured in Belgium last week, did not kill himself in Paris or before his arrest. "It shows that if there is a weakness in ISIS, it is that there are humans in its ranks," Hénin wrote. "Even indoctrinated, it still takes a human being to press the button that will kill dozens of people, including him or herself." He also said it's important not to say countries are "at war" with ISIS, and he calls what they do "large-scale political violence." There is "no future" in allowing politicians to make "racist utterances," he added, before calling on people to "keep calm and keep things in perspective." He said "the root cause of all this" is the war in Syria, and everyone needs to "hold tight and reaffirm our values." Read the entire op-ed at The Guardian.

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