“The United States stands firmly with Belgium and with the nations of Europe in the face of this tragedy”, he said. Ten men are believed to have directly carried out November’s terror attacks in Paris that killed 130.
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The US secretary of state, John Kerry, was due to arrive in Brussels on Friday in a show of solidarity. “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”.
In a statement on Friday, it had named as “Faycal C” one of three men police had detained near the federal prosecutor’s office, the heavily guarded center of the investigation effort.
Bakraoui was one of two suicide bombers at the airport whose suitcase bombs killed 11 people.
The EU home affairs commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said on Thursday the “attacks did not come as a surprise”, raising further questions as to why worldwide authorities failed to stop the bombers.
As Belgium begins the last of three official days of mourning, investigators are still searching for other potential attackers and accomplices.
Turkey’s president this week criticized Belgium for failing to track the brothers – Brahim, a convicted Belgian armed robber whom it deported a year ago and who blew himself up at the airport on Tuesday, and Khalid, who set off his suicide vest at a metro station in the city centre an hour later.
In further evidence of connections between the Paris and Brussels attacks, police sources have said they believe the second dead suicide bomber at the airport was Najim Laachraoui, 24, a veteran Belgian Isis fighter and bombmaker whose DNA was found on two of the explosive belts used in Paris. US officials said Thursday that they were on an American terrorism watch list.
Officials are looking for another unidentified man seen on a surveillance video with Ibrahim at the Brussels airport on Tuesday.
The Brussels airport will be closed at least through Sunday. Both the Belgian interior minister and justice minister offered to resign, but according to the BBC, the prime minister refused.
“I can confirm a police operation targeting a person who was intercepted by police and suffered a slight leg injury”, Schaerbeek mayor Bernard Clerfayt said, according to ABC.
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Belgium’s federal prosecutor also confirmed that there was an worldwide and European arrest warrant against Khalid El-Bakraoui dating from December 11, 2015.
