We Can't Even Celebrate New Year's Eve Because Of Muslims

New Year's Eve fireworks cancelled in Brussels due to terrorist threat.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - No New Year's Eve fireworks in Brussels, Belgium this year.

Officials in the European city say the traditional event has been cancelled due to an ongoing terror threat.

Authorities in the Belgian capital are on alert after 14 people were detained last week because they were suspected of plotting to break a convicted al-Qaida militant out of jail.

The city's popular downtown Christmas market will close early, at 6 p.m., on Dec. 31 rather than staying open all night, and the adjacent skating rink will shut at 8 p.m.

The inmate is a Tunisian who is a former professional soccer player.

He is serving 10 years for plotting to drive a car bomb into the cafeteria of a Belgian air force base housing about 100 U.S. military personnel.

However, in a letter published by the daily newspaper La Derniere Heure, 37-year-old Nizar Trabelsi denied that his supporters were plotting his jailbreak or any terror attack.

A judge ordered his supporters' released for lack of evidence, and all suspects have maintained their innocence.

Authorities said the city would maintain heightened security measures until at least Jan. 3.

"We've reviewed the situation and the conclusion is that there is no reason to scale back the current level of (terror) alert," said Jaak Raes, director general of the government's Crisis Centre. "The aim is not to create panic ... but to avoid unnecessary risks."

The government said last week it had information that the suspects were plotting to use explosives and other weapons to free Trabelsi, who was arrested in Brussels in 2001, two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, and convicted two years later.

Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt warned that the suspects also could have other targets in mind, and ordered police to step up security at the airport, in subway stations and at the Christmas market.

During his trial, Trabelsi admitted plotting to kill U.S. soldiers based in northeastern Belgium, saying he had met al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and asked to become a suicide bomber.

Trabelsi came to Europe to play professional soccer in 1989. Over the next few years, he bounced from team to team in the minor leagues, acquiring a cocaine habit and a criminal record.

Eventually, he made his way to al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, where evidence presented at his trial showed he placed himself on a "list of martyrs" ready to commit suicide attacks.


Imagine all the fun people are not going to get to have. All the people who will be staying in tonight, instead of going out. All the people who won't meet. The people who won't have their lives changed.

All because of Muslims who come to live here in our countries, even though they hate us.