Denial is apparently alive and well in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, where Ibrahim Abdeslam’s mother just can’t understand why her son would blow himself up. Even though the family admits that he spent a lot of time in Syria, and had “become radicalized.”

Dear old mom is saying it was stress.

Their mother, speaking to a reporter through her nephew – the bombers’ cousin – outside the family home in Molenbeek, Brussels, told the Belgian website Het Laatste Nieuws that she was sure he had not planned to kill anyone.

Another family member said he would not have wanted to become a suicide bomber. “Maybe the explosives went off prematurely by accident. Maybe it was stress.
“We even saw him two days before the attacks. There were no signs that they had plans to do anything violent.
“The fact that his bomb belt exploded without killing anyone else says a lot.”

The family admitted he had spent “a long time” in Syria.

The “other family member” was apparently a cousin who was interpreting for Abdeslam’s mother. All of these statements are being attributed to her by other media.

If he didn’t intend to hurt anyone, then why was he wearing a suicide vest, Mom? And yes, he only killed himself and injured one other person. But maybe Ibrahim wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, and detonated his vest early. We can be grateful that he failed to kill anyone else without attributing it to a sudden change of heart on his account. After all, the family admits that he was a radical who had spent time in Syria. I doubt he changed his mind about the jihad while standing in front of the cafe, wired up to blow.

Ibrahim, if you will recall, also has a couple of brothers. Mohamed was arrested in Brussels at the family home, questioned, and has now been released without any charges. The other brother, Salah, is wanted and is the target of an international manhunt, after being tied to the Paris attacks.

[AppelàTémoin] La #PJ recherche 1 individu susceptible d'être impliqué ds les attentats du 13/11/2015 #ParisAttacks pic.twitter.com/Gpr4MY1I53

— Police Nationale (@PoliceNationale) November 15, 2015

The family can’t understand what he was doing there, either.

Mohamed Abdeslam, who was arrested on Saturday in connection with the attacks, but was released without charge, said that the family were ‘shocked’ and ‘thinking of the victims’.
Speaking today he added: ‘We didn’t know anything, we have a mother here who’s devastated. Of course we are thinking of the families in Paris.’
He added: ‘At no point could we have thought that my brothers were involved in this.’
‘We did not know that my brothers had been radicalised. We only found out about this on television.’
‘At no point did we think that something like this could happen. We still don’t know what happened with Salah.’

So, Mohamed is apparently living in the same neighborhood of denial that Mom Abdeslam is, too. Can’t imagine why. I mean, it’s inconceivable that Ibrahim went to Syria, got trained and radicalized, came back to Brussels, and infected his brother Salah with the desire for jihad and then involved him in a plot to kill innocent civilians.

In the meantime, Belgian authorities have begun raids in the Molenbeek neighborhood, in an effort to get control over an area long known to authorities as a “hotbed of jihadism.” It’s going to take more than a show of raids to kill a cancer that’s been allowed to fester for years. Especially when their mothers and brothers are in such denial as to believe that the cancer has invaded their family, too – or are they just putting on a good face for the press? You make the call.