A manhunt has begun for a Belgian soldier and far-right terror suspect, who is thought to be heavily armed and who has been missing since reportedly threatening a pro-vaccine virologist three days ago.
Army personnel have joined police using tracker dogs in the search for Jurgen Conings.
The soldier, 46, has not been seen since he had made threats against Belgian institutions and celebrities, a federal prosecutor said, without giving details.
Coning is believed to be heavily armed as weapons including anti-tank rocket launchers and ammunition, taken from a military base, were found in his abandoned car near Dilsen in west Belgium.
As well as armoured vehicles, the army deployed de-mining equipment to help police searching Hoge Kempen, a 12,000-hectare (30,000 acre) park of woodland, lakes and dunes.
A highway through the area, located 65 miles (104km) east of Brussels, was closed.
The Belgian government said earlier this week that Conings was on a list of potential terrorists due to far-right tendencies.
Source: https://news.sky.com/story/jurgen-conin ... t-12312057
This incident has brought a number of topics to the surface all at once, such as far-right radicalisation, the anti-vaccine movement and mental health.
A sizeable group of people have banded together in a Facebook group to voice their support for Jürgen for multiple different reasons. A prevailing mindset is that soldiers are inadequately supported after returning from deployment, struggling to adapt back to "normal" life and living with traumas from the war. I found it remarkable that many people were relativizing Jürgen's actions.
Personally I don't see any excuse for these kind of actions. He may have - from his perspective - valid reasons for acting the way he does, and even if some of us understand them it does not make his actions any less questionable. It is possible this man was driven to more far-right tendencies because of what he experienced during deployments, and I hope that if anything positive were to come from this, it's that mental health within the armed forces is taken more seriously, and the culture within the army is reformed to make it easier for soldiers to seek out and receive the help they need.
There's been a lot to think and talk about when it comes to this story for me and my friends. I'm wondering what your thought are on this, NSG?
