Belgium’s prime minister was contrite after the Islamic State’s deadly attack on one of world’s most important cities.
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Sven Mary, Mr. Abdeslam’s lawyer, said his client had changed his mind because he understood that “the case here is just a small piece”, and that he wanted to “explain himself in France”. Ibrahim El Bakraoui and his brother Khalid, who denoted a bomb at the metro station, were on USA watch lists before the assaults in Brussels. The “man in the hat” – seen with Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Laachraoui on a widely-distributed still from a security camera in the airport – has not yet been publicly identified by police. He has not been named.
Earlier this week, police found a large stash of explosives and other bomb-making materials in an apartment there they believe the attackers in Tuesday’s airport bombings had used as a safe house and bomb-making hub.
Thirty-one people died in bombings at Brussels airport and a metro station.
Bernard Cazeneuve said there were no links “at this stage” between the plot and the attacks against Brussels this week or Paris in November.
A computer-generated image showed a young man with hollow cheeks, a tiny goatee beard and thick black eyebrows.
“The Brussels event is going to further signify to Europeans that, as we have been accelerating our campaign to defeat ISIL in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere, they need to accelerate their efforts and join us”, Carter told CNN, using another acronym for IS.
“It is clear it is not one single person, but it is true that we could have expected from Ankara or Istanbul a more diligent communication, we think, that perhaps could have avoided certain things”. He said it would free Britain from Europe’s “freedom of movement” rules and give Britain more control. To the same effect, Justice Minister Koen Geen said the suspect was “not known here for terrorism”.
The ministry added three nationals were in a severe condition.
The news came as Secretary of State John Kerry visited Brussels to share America’s condolences over Tuesday’s attacks.
Turkey said Wednesday that Ibrahim El Bakraoui was apprehended in June 2015 near Turkey’s border with Syria and deported to the Netherlands.
A young German couple headed for a NY holiday after their wedding previous year were among the victims of the Brussels airport attack, which left the wife missing and the man in a coma, the Bild daily reported. Belgian and Dutch authorities were warned he was “a foreign fighter”.
Abdeslam is also believed to have driven the vehicle that brought the third Brussels suicide bomber, Najim Laachraoui, to Austria from Hungary in September a year ago. But police could not find him.
France has been on high alert since the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and injured hundreds.
He described their family as a practicing Muslim household, but said he couldn’t say what put his brother on the path to violent extremism.
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News channel BFM TV also cited from the minutes of the questioning of Abdeslam, which took place at the federal police headquarters in Brussels.
