NBC’s Jansing: ‘It’s Not a Religious Calling’ For ‘Many of the People Involved’ In Brussels and Similar Attacks

NBC News Senior White House Correspondent Chris Jansing  stated that “many of the people who are involved in these attacks now, it’s not a religious calling for them. They essentially are gang members” while reporting from Brussels, Belgium on the recent attacks there on Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Jansing said, “Here’s another thing that we’re seeing a lot of, many of the people who are involved in these attacks now, it’s not a religious calling for them. They essentially are gang members. Bakraoui, for example, Ibrahim, who was the older brother, he once took a Kalashnikov rifle and shot at police during the course of a robbery, and was sentenced, six years ago, to nine years in prison. It’s not exactly clear how he got out. All of this tied together by Salah Abdeslam. He, of course, was the guy who was on the run for four months after what happened in Paris, was arrested on Friday. Police now believe that it’s possible that all of this was moved up, that they had planned these attacks, but they moved them up, because they started to get nervous after Salah Abdeslam was taken into custody, and in fact, officials believed he would have taken part in these attacks, had he not been arrested. So that’s what you saw on the computer. You saw what they’re calling this kind of last will and testament by Ibrahim Bakraoui saying, essentially, that they had to move along, that they were worried about going to prison, and there was sort of an allusion in that note to the fact that he didn’t want to be in a prison cell next to Salah Abdeslam.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett