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.