From Reuters, with thanks to the One Who Must Not Be Named.
AMSTERDAM: The Netherlands faces a “substantial” terrorism threat and must stage regular drills to boost readiness to cope with a possible attack, a senior government official told a Dutch newspaper yesterday. Tijbbe Joustra, National Coordinator for Fight against Terrorism, told Algemeen Dagblad in an interview that the government should make greater efforts to prepare and inform the population about the threat of terrorism.
“An attack is quite possible. There are no concrete indications as to when or how, but Al Qaeda’s range of ideas expands enormously,” Joustra said. “There is talk of faster radicalisation. Therefore we speak about a substantial threat.” Following last year’s train bomb attacks in Madrid and London’s transport system bombings, fears have grown of similar attacks in the Netherlands, which supported the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and sent troops there after the war.