Someone bombed a COVID testing site and Dutch police fear anti-lockdown protesters may have turned to terrorism
REUTERS/Eva Plevier
- Police say the attack was intentional and they are investigating it as a case of pandemic-related terrorism.
- An increase in anti-lockdown violence was expected since a four-day series of riots rocked the country in January.
- Police are increasingly worried that conspiracy theorists, QAnon, and anti-5G activists.
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A pipe bomb damaged a Dutch COVID testing facility Wednesday morning in what police are calling an intentional attack and domestic intelligence officials warn could be a case of violent, pandemic-related terrorism.
Dutch police have been expecting an increase in anti-lockdown violence since a series of riots rocked the country in January, when protesters sporadically fought with police for four straight days.
The 7 a.m. explosion at a public health clinic in Bovenkarspel, a city about 35 miles north of Amsterdam, damaged the facility and stunned an overnight security guard but did not cause any serious injuries as authorities warned that debris recovered from the scene clearly indicated an intentional attack with a pipe bomb-like device.
Menno Hartenber, a spokesman for North Holland police, told Euronews "a small metal object or pipe, 10cm in length, was attached to the side of the COVID-19 test centre".
Authorities in the Netherlands have repeatedly warned of threats and potential attacks linked to coronavirus conspiracy theories. Those theories range from unwarranted concerns about the safety of 5G mobile data networks, to COVID-19 prevention measures and vaccines, to the impossible claim that many of the world's elites are members of a sadistic cabal of pedophiles. In the UK, at least 77 phone masts were attacked by people who falsely believe that 5G somehow spreads coronavirus.
These conspiracies have been amplified by political actors on social media in multiple cases.
"The attack very much looks like the word of someone triggered by the pandemic ... fears about masks, social distancing and lockdowns, vaccine conspiracies," said Dutch intelligence official who works with disinformation campaigns and cannot be named for security reasons. "There has been so much of this, I am sure everyone sees the same threats but they are very hard to predict because most are just sick individuals."
The bigger concern for security officials will be if the investigation - which the official stressed is ongoing and will include forensics and CCTV footage to start - determines a link to an organization. Europe has seen a significant rise in far-right activity and terrorism in the past decade and investigators fear that significant overlap with communities paranoid about lockdowns, vaccines, and other political conspiracy theories will turn into organized political terrorism.
"We have already seen the connections being made, extremist groups weaponizing distrust towards the government and media in terms of COVID-19," said the official. "If it's not today it's likely a matter of time before there's a violent attack linked to the lockdowns and pandemic."
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