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President Obama vowed Tuesday to help hunt down the terrorists behind the deadly attacks in Belgium.
“We can and will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all around the world,” Obama said on the last day of his historic trip to Cuba, where he called the latest carnage in Europe “yet another reminder that the world must unite.”
“We must be together regardless of nationality or race or faith in fighting against the scourge of terrorism,” he said during an address to the Cuban people.
Obama also phoned Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel to offer condolences and personally pledge America’s support.
Officials in France, the site of two recent terror rampages by Islamic extremists, held an emergency meeting and condemned the Brussels bloodshed, with Prime Minister Manuel Valls saying, “We are at war.”
French President François Hollande said the “terrorists struck Brussels but it was Europe that was targeted — and all the world that is concerned.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered condolences to Belgian King Philippe and “strongly condemned the barbaric crimes,” a spokesman said.
But Putin ally Alexei Pushkov used the attacks to take swipes at the West, tweeting that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg let people get blown up “under his nose” while fighting an “imaginary ‘Russian threat.’ ”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu linked Tuesday’s attacks to previous bloodshed by radical Muslims, saying, “The only way to defeat these terrorists is to join together and fight them together.”
“The chain of attacks from Paris to San Bernardino to Istanbul to the Ivory Coast and now to Brussels, and the daily attacks in Israel — this is one continuous assault on all of us,” Netanyahu told the annual Washington convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee by live video.
“Their basic demand is that we should simply disappear,” he added. “Well, my friends, that’s not going to happen.”
Israeli Cabinet Minister Ofir Akunis, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, also blasted Europeans for turning a blind eye to the growth of “Islamic terror cells.”
On his Facebook page, Akunis said, “Many in Europe have preferred to occupy themselves with the folly of condemning Israel, labelling products, and boycotts.”



