Unknown event in North Holland, Aalsmeer area, Netherlands on Tue 8th December 2020

He does not feel threatened, because he says he has no enemies, but he is devastated. Mohamad Mahmoed, together with his brother, owns the Polish supermarket in Aalsmeer, which was destroyed by a major explosion last night around 03:00. He saw early in the morning the havoc caused by the blast. "We really collapsed together, we couldn't believe it." His shop had been open for over a year and he did a long time remodeling before he could open the doors. "We saw everything go up in flames. It hurt us a lot, but we can't do anything about it." Mahmoud does not know why it happened, but he suspects it is no coincidence. "What I understand is that it was done on purpose, so I hope the culprit will be caught soon." It is still being investigated who is behind it. "A lot of people know me because I also play football. I'm a normal boy, an entrepreneur with several businesses. It is purely out of jealousy that someone does something like that." "Experienced some kind of terrorist act" An hour after the explosion in Aalsmeer, there was also an explosion in Heeswijk-Dinther in Brabant near a Polish supermarket of the same name, Biedronka. But that business does not belong to Mahmoed and he does not know the owner either. "We don't know anything about it. Many Polish supermarkets in the Netherlands use the name Biedronka because it is not patented. There are many things that I don't know the owner of." According to mayor Gido Oude Kotte of Aalsmeer, the fear is good. "These kinds of things don't happen at all in our church. It's a wonder there were no injuries here. This could have turned out very badly." Although the police do not want to say anything about a possible cause, according to Oude Kotte it does not seem to have happened by chance. "We still have to wait for the investigation, but it would be very surprising if it were a coincidence that the same thing happened to a store in Noord-Brabant. We experienced a kind of terrorist act here this morning." Extra acid “What I understand is that it was an explosion, so really deliberate and purely focused on the business and the people living above it,” says the owner. "But why exactly that is with us, we also wonder. People have not taken into account the damage they would do." He finds that something like this just happens in December. "We had done some shopping for Christmas and we would get more stuff. It is very easy to accept it now, but we are not going to do that. We hope to hear from the municipality as soon as possible when we may again to build."