Interview: Brussels official calls for effective information sharing in anti-terrorism fight

A Brussels official said on Wednesday that to enhance security, people need more resources and it is indispensable to have a better cooperation at the EU level with a true and effective database to exchange information.

"Even if Belgium and in particular Brussels at this moment are more under the general attention because of terrorism I think that unfortunately we are with different degrees all in the same situation," Marc-Jean Ghyssels, mayor of Forest, one of 19 municipalities that make up Brussels, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

In the Brussels district of Forest, fingerprints belonging to the last November's Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam had been found earlier in March in a police raid.

"We need to work together and not divided," said Ghyssels.

Ghyssels said the police district agent plays an important role because they knows the field, they are in contact with the population and they know some secrets or can discover something unusual about a potential danger and communicate it to the judiciary police or the intelligence services.

"The problem is that sometimes because of issues of human relations or careerism, the different services are maybe in competition, this can provoke a drift in the investigation and we should avoid that," he said.

Ghyssels noted that people have to face the problem on the basis of prevention projects with actions on the social, employment and housing aspects. There are young people not particularly disadvantaged that are bored with life and are searching for an adrenaline fix, he said.

"About the future, I'm persuaded, and my feeling is shared by a lot of experts on terrorism at a federal level and among the other mayors, that we are always under threat, there are what we could call 'sleeping' terrorists cells that could always rapidly act," he said.

"We solved a little part of the problem and unfortunately the other countries like France, Spain or Italy are not completely protected," the official added.

Explosions at Brussels' Zaventem international airport and at the Maelbeek metro station on Tuesday killed at least 31 people and injured about 300 others. Endit