In France, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said a French national who appeared to be at an advanced stage of planning a terrorist attack was arrested north of Paris.
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Le Monde said the interviewers focused heavily on the events of November 13 in Paris in which 130 people died, rather than on future plans.
This CCTV image from the Brussels Airport surveillance cameras made available by Belgian Police, shows what officials believe may be suspects in the Brussels airport attack.
Belgian authorities have formally linked the Brussels terror attacks with those carried out in Paris last November, but there is still confusion over whether they have dismantled, or merely scattered a terrorist cell, reports CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey.
Prosecutors said that Khalid El Bakraoui, named as the assailant at the Maalbeek metro station while his brother Ibrahim was named as a suicide bomber at the airport, was the subject of an global warrant for terrorism in relation to the Paris attacks.
Laachraoui’s fingerprints were found on the luggage bombs used Tuesday as well as explosive vests that were used in Paris, NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston reports, citing counterterrorism officials in the US and Europe. Security analysts predicted this week that police raids would continue throughout the city for weeks and would particularly focus on the neighborhoods of Schaerbeek or Molenbeek, where a suspected Paris attacker was arrested last week. Brussels airport officials said on Saturday that flights will not resume before Tuesday as damage is assessed following the twin bomb blasts.
“The United States stands firmly with Belgium and with the nations of Europe in the face of this tragedy”, Kerry said Friday, according to the AP.
Numerous dead remained unidentified, partly because of the severity of devastation caused by the nail-packed bombs detonated in crowds. Earlier, police and government sources said it was highly likely he was the third man seen at the airport. Other signs of an impending attack may also have been missed.
Evidence is mounting that the extremists may have launched this week’s attacks in Brussels in haste because they feared authorities were closing in on them after Abdeslam’s arrest.
The Netherlands on Thursday evening confirmed that Brussels bomber Ibrahim el-Bakraoui was in the Netherlands after being sent out of Turkey a year ago.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, in a speech Thursday, said the attacks on the European Union’s capital targeted the “liberty of daily life” and “the liberty upon which the European project was built”.
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The Brussels Airport will be closed at least through Sunday.
