A VIDEO of teenagers lighting a petrol bomb under a Christmas tree while yelling “Allahu Akbar” has sparked outrage in Belgium.
The incident occurred in a square near the Clemenceau metro station in Anderlecht, in the Belgian capital Brussels, on New Year’s Eve.
In the video, originally uploaded to Facebook and later posted to Liveleak, a group of people approach the tree before one throws an object underneath.
Seconds later an explosion can be heard, and the tree is quickly engulfed in flames. As they run away, the teens can be heard yelling “Allahu Akbar”.
The original uploader, named as Mohamed Amine in the video description, has since taken down his Facebook page.
Brussels residents took to Facebook to express their outrage. “Today they will set fire to a Christmas tree, tomorrow they will behead a Christian,” wrote one man.
“When they celebrate Ramadan nobody bothers then, so why do they attack the beliefs of others?” another said. “We will not stop celebrating the birth of Jesus.”
One man said he was “shocked by what I saw last night in Brussels”.
“Brussels is no longer a free city,” he wrote. “Anyone who has ever had the opportunity to travel abroad may realise that the situation in Brussels is neither normal nor tenable in the long-term.
“Brussels will die economically, socially and touristically, especially if no drastic policy is conducted within 10 years. I am very serious.”
One man described the attack as an “act of racism [and an] attack [on] our customs”, while another said: “The only solution is to return foreign offenders to their country with a good ass-kicking.”
It followed a second video taken on the same evening showing a gang of youths pushing a car down an escalator of the Clemenceau metro station.
The car crashed on its side while shocked riders watched from an adjoining escalator, as the youths run away swearing and yelling. No one was injured but train services were suspended for the rest of the evening
One of the youths was arrested, local news site HLN reported. It is not known whether it is same group of youths in both videos.
Brussels MP Jamal Ikazban hit out at the both the perpetrators and security services on his Facebook page, The Daily Mail reported. “I have a thought for the person who wakes up quietly this January 1 and finds out that his car is in the subway,” he said.
“It is not only not funny, but what is the most frightening it is to imagine that it is possible to take a car in the underground despite the warnings of level 3 AND 4, the presence of the military, the many cameras.
“Let us imagine for a moment that same car full of explosives in the subway and you will understand that we are entitled to ask ourselves the question of the effectiveness of all these new security measures.”
Belgium has been on high alert since the Paris attacks, and the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek in particular has been singled out as the terror capital of Europe and a breeding ground of extremists. The country cancelled many New Year’s Eve celebrations altogether due to fears of terrorism.
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