A local terrorism expert spent time living and working in Brussels. He’s sharing his unique insight into Tuesday’s terrorist attacks.

There’s a specific reason why the terrorists may have struck that subway car, Craig Gundry said.

Gundry is a terrorism expert with the KKP Security Group. He shares his expertise with the world. Just this past January he was in Brussels, working with law enforcement and government agencies. He taught the agencies how to protect themselves from terrorist attacks. He felt an attack in Belgium was imminent. “As far as the target selection (of Belgium), I’m really not surprised,” Gundry said.

He was not surprised a bomb exploded on a subway train headed for the Schuman station. The Schuman station is where employees get off to work at the European Union. The station is near a diplomatic corridor where you’ll find embassies and EU offices.

“If one was trying to target EU employees, those trains would make a logical target,” Gundry explained.

The offices of the European Union are heavily protected, but the subway stations are not, he said. “I was just there in January. You really did not see a significant armed presence, police or military, in the train system itself,” he said.

Selecting that place was likely intended to send a message to the EU, Gundry said. “Keep in mind, many of the EU nations are actively involved in the fight now,” he said.

He said both the subway car and the area of the airport where the terrorists struck were vulnerable and strategically valuable because of the lack of security and large crowds. Gundry said this was not just an attack on Belgium, but on Europe as a whole. Nearby countries will quickly have to heed this tragic wake-up call, he said.

“Recognize that the threat is real and that literally they’re at the door,” Gundry said. “Europe by and large needs to start taking major proactive steps in order to mitigate this problem before it gets any worse … I do think this is the beginning.”

Officials have said these terrorists hailed from a nearby Muslim community in Brussels. Gundry said radicalization in European neighborhoods is increasingly becoming an issue. It’s difficult to manage, he said.

“Multiculturalism has created a very insular environment where many of these communities are not really assimilated into the local society. And law enforcement and intelligence services in many cases don’t have good networks to understand what’s going on inside those communities, so by and large these are dark environments to them,” Gundry said.

He’s now hearing from more officials in Brussels who want him to share his expertise, especially in light of these attacks. He plans to return to Belgium in June.