BRUSSELS — With children’s drawings and colorful posters now adorning the walls and windows, it was easy to forget the notorious past of the red brick building, whose history still haunts a working-class Brussels neighborhood. A few years earlier, the bar’s owner had let drug trafficking proliferate on the site. With patrons, he would watch videos from the Islamic State. And in the basement of the bar, Les Béguines, he would chat online with a friend who had joined the terrorist group in Syria. Then in November 2015, he detonated his explosive vest as part of a series of attacks in and around Paris.

Source: New York Times January 04, 2022 18:20 UTC