monitoring organization said Friday that militants are threatening Belgium with terrorism for having banned the wearing of face-covering burqas in public. In an e-mail to subscribers, the United States-based SITE Monitoring Service quoted posts on militant Internet sites as urging the bombing, torture and killing of Belgians. In its introduction to the posts, SITE made no assessment of the severity of the threat. According to SITE, on July 24 — the day after Belgium's burqa ban took effect — someone called Faz Al-Shaheed posted a comment on the Shumukh Al-Islam forum saying, “This is what your parliament unanimously decided except for one representative, to ban the wearing of the veil in your small country. “So, by this decision you have ignited unto yourselves a fire without an extinguisher. ... I urge our brethren in Belgium to do what they can of bombing, destroying, torturing and assassinating them, because they are the ones who started it.” That post drew several like-minded comments in response, SITE said. “Destroy their buildings with explosives, their cars with booby-traps, and their men with sniper rifles,” someone using the name Fashudu Al-Withaq wrote, the monitoring organization said. Another poster, using the name Asad Al-Malhama, reportedly gave technical suggestions for making a bomb, then added, “Don't forget to add nails and shrapnel on the outside in order to cause the largest number of death and injuries to the criminal enemies ...” Another poster urged that “gifts” for France not be forgotten, as France was the first country in Europe to ban the veil. Belgium's ban on wearing the burqa took effect July 23, having been overwhelmingly approved by the parliament. Its supporters said it was needed as a security measure. A lawyer representing two Belgian women who wear the burqa has appealed to a court to declare the ban unconstitutional.
