Terrorist attacks that almost occurred -- the lesson is that there are a lot of possible targets

If there is one lesson from these news stories is that there are a lot of targets for terrorists to hit.  Before going through the newest stories here is a bit of a review.

We are living in a new era.  In May, four people were shot dead at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.  In September, there were beheadings in Oklahoma and London.  October was even worse: a car attack in Quebec, a shooting in Ottawa, a hatchet assault in New York City, and a knife attack that left five dead at an Israeli synagogue.  This is but a sample.  

Now this week we have these stories:

From Fox News:

An alleged sympathizer of the Islamic State terror group was arrested in Ohio on Wednesday after authorities learned that he was plotting a shooting and bombing attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Christopher Lee Cornell, 20, of Green Township, considered members of Congress as "enemies," and planned to travel to Washington to kill employees and officers working in and around the U.S. Capitol, according to a criminal complaint. Authorities said he had two semi-automatic rifles and about 600 rounds of ammunition, and planned to build and detonate pipe bombs at and near the U.S. Capitol. . . .

Meanwhile in Oklahoma a police chief was killed by another ISIS sympathizer.

An Oklahoma police chief survived being shot several times because he was handed a bulletproof vest just moments before entering the home of the suspect who posted statements about ISIS on social media. 

NewsOK.com reported that the Sentinel Police Chief Louis Ross was responding to the home linked to an earlier bomb threat. While police cleared out the house, they were confronted in one of the bedrooms and shots were fired. 

Ross was hit several times in the chest and arm. A man and his wife were arrested.
Authorities described the shooting suspect as a man in his 30s who posted statements on social media about ISIS. . . .

Also in Belgium:

Belgian authorities were searching for clues early Friday after police killed two in raids aimed at jihadists returning from Syria who were planning to launch a "Belgian Charlie Hebdo" attack, officials said. 

Police were searching in Verviers, where the raid took place, and the greater Brussels area as part of a weeklong investigation that started well before the terrorism spree last week that led to 17 deaths in the Paris area. The Belgian operations had no apparent link to the terrorist acts committed in France. 

And, unlike the Paris terrorists, who attacked the office of a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery store, the suspects in Belgium were reportedly aiming at hard targets: police installations. . . .