It is a victory for the Belgium authorities to have captured Salah Abdelsalam, a key suspect in the attacks in Paris in November which killed 130 people. Because he is one of Europe's most wanted men and had been on the run for four months, it is a relief that he is now off the streets, unable to launch any more horrific attacks like the Paris murders, claimed by militants from Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS). However, terrorism did not end in the district of Molenbeek where Abdelsalam was captured on Friday. Another man on a wanted list was arrested during the capture, three members of a family accused of harboring Abdel-Salam have also been detained, and one man was shot dead and as many as two other suspects may have escaped in the lead-up to Abdelsalam's capture a few days earlier. That is eight people involved one way or the other in terrorism-related activities, all in a very small, quaint city in a very small country in Europe. There must still be many, many more Abdelsalams and accomplices roaming around Europe on fake passports and crossing freely the continent's open borders. In the end, Abdelsalam isn't even a big terrorist fish. From what is known about him thus far, he was a minor player in a monstrous incident. He allegedly rented the car that carried a team of terrorists to the Stade de France soccer stadium in Paris, one of the attack sites, as well as the car that carried another team of terrorists to the Bataclan Theater in Paris where the majority of the victims were killed. However, Abdelsalam is the only survivor among the Paris terrorists; the others were either shot by police or blew themselves up. So he could provide a goldmine of information about the attacks, the mastermind or masterminds behind them, and the traffic in people and arms between Daesh and Western Europe. Although he might not talk and torture is not used in countries that are very careful about treading on human rights, interrogators should be at least able to glean enough from Abdelsalam to begin dismantling the network of terrorist supporters in Brussels who helped him hide since November. While European and US officials expressed relief that Abdelsalam was caught, there should be concern that he wasn't caught earlier. For four months, his picture was plastered all over Europe and the world. He was found hiding in a small community and geographic area that had been searched multiple times. Worrying still, Abdelsalam and his brother Ibrahim, who died in Paris, were known to Belgian authorities as radicals since March 2015. Most important, Molenbeek has a reputation as a hotbed for Islamist terrorism. Several members of its large, predominantly Muslim population - many of whom are first, second and third-generation immigrants from North Africa - have been linked to terror plots and attacks. Just last fall, Belgian's justice minister cited Molenbeek as a place where more needs to be done to address what he called Belgium's "foreign fighter problem". To be fair, it is not easy to stop or spot somebody like Abdelsalam, one of thousands who lead a relatively ordinary if not very successful life. He's a French citizen born in Belgium from Moroccan parents, worked as security guard and mechanic for a Belgium public transportation company for about a year, was fired for failing to show up to work on a regular basis, lived on unemployment benefits and was known as a small-time drug dealer and user. Such a person could easily fall between the cracks. Messages of congratulations from President Obama and President Hollande have quickly billed Abdelsalam's capture as a triumph in Europe's war against terrorists. But this is only a small milestone on a very long road toward security on the continent and elsewhere.
