The statement said that investigators established on the basis of DNA tests that Naijm Laachraoui was one of the suicide bombers that blew himself up in the Brussels airport on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people there.
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Abdeslam was interviewed for two hours by Belgian authorities on Saturday, Belgium’s federal prosecutor said. “We will come back with greater resolve – with greater strength – and we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of the Earth”.
The Islamic State group posted a video on social media calling the Brussels blasts a victory, and featured the training of Belgian militants suspected in the Paris attacks.
This is the same district where police found explosives and an IS flag earlier this week, in a flat used by Tuesday’s attackers.
Mr Clerfayt said the person was linked to bomb attacks in Brussels, and to a foiled plot this week near Paris.
Schaerbeek is where police found a bomb factory after the Brussels airport and metro suicide attacks on Tuesday and from where the three airport attackers set off that morning.
A police source told AFP that the raid was linked to French terror suspect Reda Kriket who was arrested in the outskirts of Paris on Thursday.
The arrests took place in the Jette and Schaerbeek neighborhoods of Brussels amid house-to-house searches and outside the prosecutor’s office.
Prosecutors in Giessen said Friday the 28-year-old, whom they didn’t identify, was picked up early Thursday because he didn’t have valid ID.
Two Americans, Justin Shults and his wife Stephanie, from Kentucky, have not been heard from since the attacks, reported NBC News.
State TV says man, wounded and arrested in Schaerbeek district of Brussels, was carrying a bag of explosive materials. Officials say that man had a Belgian terror conviction and connections to the suspected ringleader of last year’s deadly November 13 attacks in Paris.
The brothers were already in US terrorism databases at the time of the attacks, officials said.
A major anti-terror raid is underway in the Belgian capital Brussels. The U.S. official declined to name the Americans killed until their next of kin had been notified.
Michel said, “We need to accept that we need to improve the fight against terrorism in Europe and in Belgium”.
Turkish authorities say Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of the suicide bombers at Brussels Airport, was caught in June in Turkey’s border province of Gaziantep and deported at his own request to the Netherlands. Schaerbeek was also raided Thursday night, and six people were initially detained for questioning, before three of them were eventually released.
Interpol has announced it is providing Belgium with operational and analytical support in the wake of the Brussels attacks.
The Brussels airport will not have passenger flights until Sunday.
Andre Adam, a former ambassador to the USA during the Clinton administration, was also among those killed, the Belgian Foreign Ministry said today.
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A Belgian man said the whole atmosphere in the city has “the feeling of war”.
