Radicals Set Fire to BATS Defense Company Building in Belgium

Radicals in Belgium set fire to the premises of defense company BATS in the Sart-Tilman science park in Liège.

Theo Francken, Minister of Defense of Belgium, reported the terrorist attack.

The perpetrators published a statement on the activist website Stuut and claimed responsibility for the fire under the pretext of fighting against the military industry and imperialism as their justification.

In their statement, the authors justified their choice of target by pointing to BATS’s ties to the Israeli defense industry.

“BATS is 100% Israeli company, 100% owned by Israel Aerospace Industries,” the statement reads.

BATS is a Belgian company that is part of the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) group, the Israeli state-owned defense contractor. It is owned through several companies within the group: BATS is legally owned by Lardosa Investments B.V., a Dutch company controlled by Israel Aerospace Industries.

ELTA Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of IAI, is also part of the corporate structure to which BATS belongs.

In their statement, the authors broadly criticized BATS’s military activities and linked them to the war in Gaza.

So far, authorities have not identified the perpetrators of the fire, nor have they established any possible affiliation with a specific organization.

On August 4, the Belgian company Sol.One began setting up a new 8,000-square-meter drone manufacturing facility in the city of Evergem.