Terror in Brussels; FBI backs off backdoor demand; Expect more NorK missiles until May; Crete, V-22s, Benghazi! And a bit more.

Two explosions hit the main airport in Brussels and a third struck a busy subway station during Belgium’s morning rush hour, killing at least 14 at the airport and another 20 on the metro, in an attack the French president said struck “the whole of Europe.” The chief prosecutor in Belgium said all three explosions were terrorist attacks and a criminal investigation has been opened.

The violence began with a “pair of explosions at a departure hall at Brussels Airport, in the town of Zaventem, about seven miles northeast of the city center, just before 8 a.m.,” The New York Times reports.

An airport baggage security officer: “I heard a man screaming just behind the Belfius bank. He spoke in Arabic and then when he had finished speaking I heard a detonation, a huge one...What I saw was total panic, people’s fear, people were crying all over the place. And what did we do? Nothing.”

Many of the dead and wounded received leg injuries, one airport worker told Reuters, suggesting at least one bomb in a bag.

Then “around 9:10 a.m., another blast shook the Maelbeek subway station in downtown Brussels,” the Times adds, “not far from the area that houses most of the European Union’s core institutions.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, the Washington Post writes, “but European leaders wasted no time in linking to other attacks by Islamist militants. ‘We are at war,’ said French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.’”

Agence France-Presse is live-blogging the latest developments, despite a media blackout requested by Belgian authorities, here.

FBI: we may not need Apple to write a backdoor OS after all. An unidentified “outside party” has shown the U.S. Justice Department how to get into that locked iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino shooter, DoJ officials said Monday evening, explaining why the department cancelld a scheduled hearing today with Apple in a California court, a spat that’s at “the center of a dispute over the FBI’s authority to compel tech companies to help it access encrypted data,” Foreign Policy reported.

Apple said “it remains unclear whether the tool will actually work, and that the government may once more change course and attempt to compel the company’s cooperation,” FP writes.

Where does the high-profile tussle go from here? “The result is likely to be the end of this chapter of Apple’s encryption fight,” writes tech site The Verge. “It’s still possible the new method won’t pan out or another case will lead to a similar fight, but the most likely result is an effective ceasefire in the increasingly bitter conflict between Apple and law enforcement. It’s also a reminder that, while iOS’s encryption measures were enough to stymie the FBI's investigators for a few months, no system is without flaws.” That, here.

From Defense One

Pyongyang forecast: more missiles through May. North Korea’s recent launches display modest technological achievements, but that's not why they're flying. Tech Editor Patrick Tucker has the story, here.

It’s not just Trump: the chilling rise in global authoritarianism. Terrorism and drone war are feeding a larger sense of insecurity, driving some to xenophobia and jingoism. Via Quartz, here.

Special report: the U.S. military’s new retirement system. Last year, Congress overhauled the system, moving away from the 20-year, all-or-nothing pension toward a more flexible — but complicated — arrangement. In a downloadable special report, Defense One explains what changed and how it will affect everything from wallets to service budgets. Get it (registration required), here.

Welcome to Tuesday’s D Brief, by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. On this day in 1917, Pensacola Naval Aviation Training School graduated the first Coast Guard aviators. Fly this link over to someone who needs it: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. Got news? Let us know: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.

Greeks to U.S.: Base more stuff at Souda Bay. That was Hellenic Defense Minister Panos Kammenos’ message during a brief appearance on Capitol Hill Monday. Kammenos called the U.S. military installation on Crete the “most important base now for the crisis in the Middle East and North Africa,” referring to the multi-national campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq, Syria, and Africa and the migrant crisis in the region.

The minister also argued that America could rely on Greece more than Turkey, its historic-rival-turned-NATO-ally. “We are starting, with our United States allies, ways and means to strengthen and expand the operational capabilities of Souda Bay to support our common cause,” and hinted that a “new special forces center” is in the works.

The minister left early, but the event continued with the unveiling of a glowing report about the base from Lexington Institute’s Dan Goure. That drew a “question” from Lexington’s Loren Thompson: would basing V-22s at Souda Bay increase its utility? (FYI: Thompson is a huge V-22 advocate and consults for Osprey-maker Boeing.) Why, yes! Goure said. At Thompson’s prodding, he added that V-22s could have made it in time to save two of the four Americans killed in Benghazi, Libya, if they were dispatched immediately from Souda Bay when the U.S. facility came under attack.

From bottles to firebombs in the SCS. Shortly after the Philippines lifted the legal hurdles to allow U.S. troops to move into five bases, China says, Philippine fishermen chucked firebombs at China’s coast guard after those Chinese coasties reportedly hurled bottles at the fishermen working the waters of the South China Sea, Reuters reports.

ICYMI: Here are the five bases American troops are headed to, via Military Times.

And, oh-by-the-way, China now has a new armed drone helicopter, Jeffrey Lin and Peter Singer report in Popular Science. “Unveiled at the International Exhibition of National Security and Resilience in Dubai, NORINCO’s Sky Saker is a coaxial rotor, 100-200kg helicopter UCAV. The Sky Saker H300’s cameras include electro-optical and infrared systems, along with laser target designators. In addition to surveillance and fire control, the Sky Saker H300 can provide midcourse corrections for guided munitions launched by other platforms, such as cruise missiles from H-6K bombers or shells fired from PLZ-05 howitzers. The Sky Saker H300's ground control station is likely to be networked to a wider array of Chinese military systems for integrated fire effect, which would make it not only a valuable asset for counterinsurgency and urban combat, but also for wider missions like hunting enemy small ships (such as the Taiwanese Tuo stealth boat) or electronic warfare vehicles.” Read the rest, here.

U.S. Army says: “Hold up on that Alaska airborne move.” The Army’s 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, was set to drop 2,600 troops as part of a broader 40,000 reduction across the service. But Russia, ISIS, China, North Korea, you name it—all suggest a decline in the Alaskan brigade is no bueno, at least for now, Stars and Stripes reports.  

Meet the general next in line to take over U.S. troops in Korea, Gen. Vincent Brooks, who has led U.S. Army Pacific since 2013, Military Times reports. If confirmed by the Senate, “Brooks will step into a role that oversees more than 20,000 U.S. troops, predominantly Army and Air Force personnel, in a region that has become more volatile as North Korea continues to make nuclear threats and conduct missile tests.” More here.

The death of a U.S. Marine in Iraq on Saturday has revealed there are more American troops in the country than previously thought, writes Paul Shinkman of U.S. News. “Marine Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin was the second American combat casualty in Iraq for operations against the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS. He was killed when an enemy rocket struck his newly established U.S. firebase roughly 50 miles south of Mosul this weekend.”

The twist? “Cardin was stationed in Iraq on a temporary deployment – a classification that would place him outside the 3,870-troop limit President Barack Obama has imposed on the total number of Americans deployed to the country, spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters Monday from the coalition headquarters in Baghdad.”

Warren was asked repeatedly about the current troop count in Iraq, but “on orders” he refused a more specific number than somewhere between 3,700 and 3,870—which is the cap. After Warren’s presser, The Daily Beast’s Nancy Youssef jumped in to fill the gap, writing on Twitter: “.@OIRSpox tells reporters he's been ordered to not release total number of US troops in Iraq, so I got it for you: As of 3/9, it was 5,031.”

Also: U.S. Marines killed two ISIS fighters Monday morning near that firebase in Mahkmour. The fighters approached the base with harassing small arms fire, which highlights the little-discussed proximity more than a hundred (precise number not disclosed) U.S. troops have to the literal “front lines” of the fight against ISIS.

“I’ve seen this bull---- before,” said James Jeffrey, who served as Obama’s ambassador to Iraq during the 2011 withdrawal. “This is another example of juvenile, White House screwing with serious things, like deployment of troops.” Read the rest of Shinkman’s report, here.